


Wild Horses

by iwantthemtostay



Series: Wild Horses [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, F/M, Teenage Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 72,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantthemtostay/pseuds/iwantthemtostay
Summary: “can’t let you slide through my hands”Family means a lot of things to Tessa. It’s her mom, her siblings, her dad. It’s skating. It’s the Moirs. It’s Scott. And maybe it’s someone she still misses whom she never got to hold.





	1. 'Childhood living is easy to do'

**Author's Note:**

> So... I got a prompt on tumblr "Prompt: A current day A/U: Tessa and Scott are secretly married with a child (from after 2014) and is there cheering them on in 2018" and I thought 'hmm, interesting concept, I'm not sure what I would do with that', and then a few days later I was reading the amazing 'Far from the Tree' by Robin Benway which deals with teenage pregnancy and adoption and somehow the ideas kind of coalesced. At first I thought 'you can't write that!' but the idea would not go away, and I came around to the conclusion that if I wrote it sensitively and with care that maybe this was a story that could be shared. So here we go.
> 
> Thank you to M who said 'DO IT', and for everything else. Thank you to the incredible do_not_confess without whom this would never have got off the ground. Thank you for encouraging me, for pushing for more, and for helping with all the various permutations of 'where', 'when', and 'how many times'. I could not have done it without you.
> 
> AU timeline-wise - Tessa and Scott skip the second half of the 2006-06 season but all other results remain the same. I considered aging them up but trying to figure out whether they would have stayed junior or gone senior complicated things (I personally picture them as a little older). 
> 
> Title from the song by The Rolling Stones.

_**Summer 2005** _

Tessa’s first time is not what she expected. She knew that most people’s first times weren’t all that, had heard Jordan talk about it often enough. But this was her and Scott, they were _different_. He knew her body maybe better than his own, and she the same with his. On the ice it sometimes felt like they were extensions of one another, not separate at all, and whenever they’d gone further before it had felt so natural. But last night wasn’t the magical experience she’d so meticulously planned, it was messy and sticky and maybe kind of weird?

She thinks the candles look tacky rather than sophisticated with the early morning sun seeping in through the white curtains. She was sure it would make the room in the apartment she and her mom are renting look romantic, but maybe Scott had thought it was silly? The other girls he had been with before probably hadn’t lit candles, or bought two packets of condoms, or worried so much about every little detail. Sex with them had probably been spontaneous and fun, not like last night planned around her mom’s spa trip with her college friends. It wasn’t lost on Tessa that her mom had made the decision to move to Canton with her this year right after she and Scott had started dating, like human-size contraception in a Burberry trench.

“Tessa,” Scott whispers, “are you awake?”

She shifts over to her side and nods her head.

“Hey.” He reaches out his hand and runs his fingers down her cheek, and that niggling doubt she had that he might want to end things over one night just disappears. “How are you feeling?”

“Um… tired? I don’t think I slept that much?”

He puts his hand on her lower back and moves closer to her. “Tess, last night… I think maybe we rushed into things a little?”

“I was ready, I planned it all out.” She’s not entirely sure that she was ready, but Scott can be so protective sometimes. She worries he’ll blame himself and then never touch her again. “Was it… was it good for you?”

“Was it good? _Tessa_ , it was incredible.” His voice is low and crackly, and she can _feel_ it. “I just felt that maybe you enjoyed the stuff we were doing before more? It might be better if we stick to that for a while, and then we can work our way back up to it?”

She means to say yes, but what comes out is “I love you.” She’s just so relieved - that he didn’t hate it, that he’s okay with taking things a little slower, that he wants her.

He rests his forehead on hers and laughs a little. “I don’t know if that’s the response most guys want when they tell their girlfriends they want to cool it down a little.”

“You’re not most guys.”

His hand tightens on her back. “I love you, too.”

They kiss for, like, five seconds before she pushes him back a little. “Scott! Your breath stinks!”

“Well, yours isn’t exactly fresh either! I thought you loved me!”

“I’d love you more if you brushed your teeth.”

He pushes off the duvet and tugs her hand. “Let’s go brush our teeth then.”

They walk to the bathroom hand in hand. “We had to take another try at kissing too, so maybe it makes sense that our first time wasn’t the best it could have been,” she muses.

He grins, “I think we have a lot to look forward to.”

 

Their first kiss wasn’t really _theirs_. It was at a party after Junior Worlds in the room of the Russian guy who won pairs. Someone had suggested spin the bottle and Tessa didn’t want to be the only one not playing so she’d hopped off her chair and sat on the floor with everyone else. Scott was across from her and she could see him getting more restless as the game progressed. It was strange, but she wasn’t surprised when on his turn the bottle stopped right in front of her. If Tessa had been a less rational person she would have thought it was fate.

Everyone was whooping as she shuffled to the middle of the circle. Scott was red-faced when she met him there, and he whispered “We don’t have to do this, Tess.”

She’d been wondering what it would be like to kiss him for at least a year and a half now, she’d drunk half a wine cooler, and she was going to take the opportunity when it presented itself. Virtues didn’t back down from a challenge.

So, she smiled and leaned in. Their lips touched for maybe five seconds until he backed away. Max hollered something in Russian and Scott shouted “Knock it off,” back at him. He returned to his former place and she was left to go back to hers humiliated. Everyone in the room could probably tell how much she liked him and he’d brushed her off with some perfunctory kiss as if to placate a child. She was almost sixteen, she wasn’t a baby anymore. He could have at least smiled afterwards or tried to make some effort to appear like kissing his skating partner wasn’t a chore.

Thankfully the game fizzled out before Tessa had to spin. Jess Dubé stormed out after Bryce kissed one of the Russian ice dancers and that was that. She chatted to Morgan and Siobhan for a while before leaving so it didn’t look like she was fleeing too.

She was barely halfway down the hallway when she heard him come running after her.

“You didn’t say goodbye.” Scott sounded out of breath, maybe Igor was right about him needing to work on his cardio.

“I didn’t want to make things… awkward.” She couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I’ll walk you to your room,” he announced.

She couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t make her sound petulant so they rode the elevator down two floors in silence.

When they were almost at her door he caught her hand in his and she finally looked up at him. “That wasn’t how I imagined our first kiss.”

“You imagined it?” she blurted out.

“Well, I thought we’d win Worlds and then…”

“You had a plan?!” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as squeaky to him as it did to her.

He laughed, “I don’t know if I’d go that far, plans are more your department, T.” He moved closer to her, “I at least expected to be alone.”

“That, uh, that would have been good.”

He ran his hand through her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Could we try it again?”

She wasn’t capable of speech so she just nodded. He cupped her face with his hand and this time he was the one leaning in.

His lips were soft but firm, and unlike the other boys she had kissed he knew exactly what to do with his tongue. His hand migrated to her hair and she moved closer to him, somehow managing to back him against the wall. Tessa felt like she was flying, like the concept of desire which had been abstract before was suddenly now concrete and technicolour and Scott. She thought someone might have passed by them at some stage, she couldn’t be sure and she certainly didn’t care. The world was reduced to her and Scott and the world had never been a better place.

Eventually they stopped. He had his eyes closed and she started to worry he might have thought it was terrible after all until he said in this new, gravelly tone, “That was better than the silver medal.”

She giggled so loudly she put her hand over her mouth. “Would it have been better than gold?”

“We’ll just have to see next year,” he grinned, and kissed her again (and again and again and again and again and again).

 

Much like the second kiss, the second time is _much_ better.

 

The third time… the third time changes everything.

 

It’s his cousin who sets off the chain of events. Cara’s the one who arrives with the bottles of moonshine from Scott’s reclusive uncle who lives out in the boonies (Tessa has to question whether a recluse could be a Moir), and it’s her who’s meant to drive Tessa home to London. Her parents are at their cottage for the weekend and she’d been told that the only way she was allowed to go to the Moir barbecue was if someone they trusted left her back by midnight.

She’d thought they were being ridiculous, what would she and Scott be able to get up to at the family Canada Day barbecue with the backyard full of kids and the house spilling over with people? It turns out though that this year’s batch of moonshine is particularly potent and by eleven almost everyone has gone home to sleep it off. Scott’s playing cards with Charlie and she’s lying on the grass getting her hair braided by Sheri while Cara alternatively texts some guy she’s been seeing and pumps Tessa for information about her relationship with Scott.

She feels kind of fizzy from the pink Moscato and keeps giggling as Cara’s questions get more ridiculous. “He’s right over there, he can probably hear you.”

“No, he can’t.” She starts shouting, “Scotty! Your girlfriend isn’t giving us any details here! I’m the one who made you date when you were little, I deserve to know!”

“Leave my girlfriend alone.” He looks over from the table and winks at her. That’s how he’d kept introducing her today, as ‘Tessa, my girlfriend’, even to people she’d known half her life. She’d liked that.

“You could at least tell me when it happened.”

“At Junior Worlds in March,” Tessa admits. She’s about to tell the whole story when Cara gets a message.

“Oh! Sorry cousins, future cousin, I have to go see my, uh, friend.” She gets up quickly. “Shit, can anyone leave Tessa home?”

“Not me, I had two cups of moonshine earlier, I don’t think I can legally drive for a week,” Sheri says.

Tessa’s hands go up to her hair. “Does it look okay?!”

“Probably better than if she’d been sober,” Cara reassures her. “Not Scott anyway, he’s a lightweight and him taking you to that empty house kind of defeats the purpose. Charlie, are you okay to drive?”

“No, he’s not.” Scott says firmly. “You had more beers than I did.”

“And I’m bigger than you. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not driving her home.” His tone has a real edge to it now, she’s never heard him speak to his brothers like that before. It’s kind of hot?

Charlie looks at Scott as if he’s considering him, and nods. “Okay, little brother. Tessa can sleep in your room and you can stay out in the garage. No hanky panky!”

Cara agrees to drop Charlie and Sheri off on her way to her rendezvous and then it’s just them.

Scott puts his hands on her cheeks and kisses her, soft and slow. He tastes like beer and she wonders if she tastes as summery as she feels.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all day.” She knew that already from the way he’d been looking at her.

She pulls him closer still and kisses him harder. Slightly breathless she suggests, “So… hanky panky?”

He laughs a little, “It’s actually going to have to be in the garage. The house is full of people sleeping off the moonshine, I don’t even think my room is free for you to sleep in later.” He grimaces, “Vernon is in there.” No one likes Vernon.

“I can work with the garage.” Tessa could probably work with most locations right now.

A look of something close to horror passes his face. “Shit, I don’t have any condoms.”

“Is that grocery store still open? We could walk.”

“God, you’re so smart.” He kisses her quick. “I’ll get my… Wait! I have one in my wallet!” He literally sprints away from her, “I always knew Danny was my favourite brother for a reason!”

Tessa makes her way towards the garage. She’s relieved they’re not going to have to walk into town, the chances of them meeting a Moir or someone from the skating club (or a Moir from the skating club) are very high.

She winces a little when she pulls the light string and the one exposed bulb flickers on. She’s going to look so pale in this light. The garage is mainly used as a holding place for hockey stuff and equipment from other sports the boys have taken up. She nearly trips on a basketball as she walks over to the old couch the Moirs moved out from the living room when they remodelled last spring.

She’s throwing a tartan rug over the couch when Scott bursts in, his arms full of candles that spill onto the floor.

“It’s not exactly pretty looking in here, I thought the candles might make it look more romantic,” he explains when she gets down to help him pick them up.

She thinks he might be blushing, his cheek feels warm when she kisses it. She lights the candles while he turns off the light.

He puts his arms around her from behind and whispers in her ear, “Can I take down your hair?”

“Do you not like Sheri’s drunk braiding?”

“I like it fine, I just like touching your hair… you know… when we’re…”

She shivers a little. She likes that, too. She turns around in his arms and starts walking them over to the couch.

“Tess, you know we still don’t need to rush anything? I don’t want you to feel like…”

He falls back on the couch and she straddles his lap. “Scott, please,” she says firmly. They’ve been through this before.

He’s hard underneath her. She moves her hips a fraction and that’s enough for him to groan, “You’re going to kill me, I swear.”

She smiles and he kisses her while his hands work the braid out of her hair. Then his hands move under her red shirt, and her new, lacy red bra. He murmurs something incomprehensible when he sees it, but she can tell it’s something good from the way his hips move under hers. She understands him perfectly when he swears after she tells him it’s a matching set.

It’s better now that he knows the rhythm she likes. Better now with one of his hands on her hip and the other in her hair. Better now that she knows how much he likes to hear her say his name. Better now with him kissing her neck. Better now with her dragging her maple-leaf painted nails down his back.

_Better._

This time she comes when he’s inside her.

In the morning he drives her home keeping one hand on hers the whole time.

 

It takes three months for them to notice. It’s Scott who mentions her not getting her period, it’s always been irregular and with starting the pill and travelling back and forth to Andorra for the Junior Grand Prix she hadn’t worried. When he brings it up she thinks of how tired she’s been lately, how her breasts were extra sensitive the night before when he had his hands on them in his truck. He drives her to a town half an hour away and they buy three pregnancy tests with the crisp dollar bills her nana sent her in a congratulations card for winning their two JGPs.

The tests all say the same thing.

 

_**September 2021** _

Later that night Katie will think the nerves she felt going up to Jenny’s room were some kind of sign of what was to be discovered (later again she’ll realise that was a serious misattribution). Jenny’s room is like her, all bright colours and books. It’s obvious that it’s her childhood room, that she’s grown up here, and it makes Katie miss her old room back in London with the Royal Ballet posters on the walls. Jenny has skating posters on her wall, including a signed one of those ice dancers she likes so much.

“Is this the one you think looks like me?” The woman is way too beautiful to remind anyone of her.

“Yes!! When you wore your hair up in a bun that day I was like ‘oh my God, it’s the third Virtue sister!’. She and her sister are crazy alike.”

She looks at Jenny, who’s laying out the snacks Mrs Zhao gave them on the bed, and back to the poster. Jenny wouldn’t just lie to her, she supposes there might be some similarity with the shape of their faces.

“When I thought about it later I realised that you look even more like her when she was younger, even your hair was the same!” Jenny has opened up her laptop and is searching something on YouTube.

She perches on the side of the bed. Jenny pats the duvet, “Come closer! You won’t see anything from there.”

She scoots in and sees the video Jenny has pulled up. “Wow.” Teenage Tessa Virtue really does look like her, the same colour and texture to their hair, similar body shape, even the same nose. She touches hers a little self-consciously.

“Well, I am adopted,” she half-jokes.

Jenny laughs a little before looking at her, “Really?! I’m so sorry, I thought you were joking!”

“Yeah, it’s just easier to tell people like that than have it be some huge deal, you know? Because it’s not.”

And it never has been for Katie. She used to go to those adoption support meetings her parents would sometimes send her to and feel sorry for some of the kids there (she knows her judginess isn’t her best trait, but it’s just the way she is). They were so caught up in who their bio parents were, why they were the way they were, wondering if they’d find them some day. It’s not like she didn’t wonder about her bio parents sometimes, it’s just not all that important to her and her life. She always knew she drank her tea the same way her dad did, she liked the same music as her mum, she could see the way she rolled her eyes was the same way her grandma did. Katie knew her family inside out, or at least she thought she did. This was before her dad knocked up his PA, like something from the covers of one of those cheap magazines she used to see in Tesco.

“It’s not. But… thank you for telling me.” Jenny squeezes her hand then, and if her heart picks up it’s only because she’s relieved her new best friend isn’t being weird about it.

“Can we watch them skate?” she asks. She’s kind of intrigued now.

“Can. We. Watch. Them. Skate. You say this like I don’t watch old videos of them most days of the week.”

Jenny presses play and teen Tessa and Scott start dancing. Like, really dancing. Not like most of the skaters Katie has seen.

“Oh my God… they’re so talented.”

“She was our age here, maybe a tiny bit older, and they were so amazing already,” Jenny sighs.

“Can we watch some more videos?”

She looks at her like this is a stupid question and puts on a playlist. They really are amazing, but Katie can’t help watching Jenny more than them. She seems to have taken it as her mission to explain just how special they are. She sways along to the music a little and moves her hands a lot, big sweeping gestures to try and get across the power Virtue and Moir skate with.

So, Katie isn’t exactly paying attention to what’s happening on the screen until she hears the commentators mention their moms’ names. “Kate and Alma?!”

“They’re so cute!"

“It’s just… my name is Katherine Alma.”

Jenny makes a sound that’s somehow half-robot and half-mouse and adjusts the purple frames of her glasses. “Did your parents choose that or your birth parents?”

“My bio mother. My dad always said he was planning to just keep whatever name she’d picked as a middle name until he heard it, he wanted to know what kind of sixteen year old called their baby Katherine Alma.”

She’d basically grown up on the story of her parents getting the call a month early because she was premature and rushing to the hospital to sit by her incubator. Her mum knew she was a Katie from the moment she saw her. Her dad usually mentioned that her bio parents were from ‘good families’ (whatever that was supposed to mean), and as she got older she noticed her mum always had a funny look on her face when he said that.

Jenny looks at her intently, and then back to the screen and back to her face. “I’m sure this is all just coincidence but… I’ve never really noticed Scott’s eyes before and now that I think about it…”

She goes on Google Images and enlarges a photo of him until all Katie can see are hazel eyes that look exactly like the ones she sees in the mirror. It’s then that her stomach goes swoop.

“Could we maybe look at some photos of them from when they were little?”

Jenny enters the search term and Katie full-on gasps when she sees a photo of a mini Tessa Virtue with a bob and red jumper hugging her mom who has a pair of sunglasses on top of her head. The only difference between it and a photo of mini Katie that her mum keeps beside her bed is that Kate Virtue doesn’t look like her mum, and that mini Tessa isn’t wearing jeans and Lelli Kelly shoes.

“This is all just a weird coincidence like you said, right?! I mean, they’re athletes, when would they have had time to have a baby?” She sounds a little hysterical to herself.

Jenny moves her head back and forth like she does in Algebra during Friday pop quizzes.

“Jen, what is it?”

“It’s just… your birthday is February? So you were born in February 2006?”

Katie nods.

“They won their Junior Grand Prixs at the start of that season and looked great, I think they were regarded as dead certs to win Junior Worlds, they maybe could have even made the team for the Olympics, but they took the rest of the season off. They said it was because Tessa was injured, and she had all those problems with compartment syndrome later so it’s always been thought it was the start of that, but now…” She looks at Katie and back at the collection of images of Tessa and Scott as kids. “You just look so, so like them.”

Katie nods slowly before resting her head on Jenny’s shoulder. Jenny takes one of her hands and holds it and they just sit like that for a little while.

“Do you wanna call your mom?” Jenny asks softly.

Katie goes to get her phone from her bag and after she rings her mum she returns to Jenny’s side.

When Mrs Zhao calls up to tell them her mum has arrived Katie gathers her things. She looks up and sees that Jenny is about to cry.

“I’m so sorry that I brought up this whole thing, it’s probably nothing and I’ve made a big deal of it and upset you like some conspiracy theorist and… I just really love being your friend and I don’t want to hurt you and…”

Katie hugs her fiercely. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault teenage Tessa Virtue is my doppelganger and I have Scott Moir’s eyes. Maybe it is nothing, and maybe it’s not, but… don’t blame yourself.” The only other time she’d seen Jenny cry was when Brent what’s-his-face had turned her down like the stupid loser he was. She wanted to punch that guy.

When they go downstairs she can tell her mum sees that something is up, she always just knows. She thanks Mrs Zhao who insists that she calls her Karin from now on, and hugs Jenny again before leaving.

They’ve backed out of the driveway when her mum asks. “Are you okay, Katie? Did something happen between you and Jenny?”

She’s confused. “Like what?” She doesn’t go to other people’s houses and start arguing with them. Hadn’t her mum seen her hug Jenny goodbye?

“Oh, I don’t know, you both looked so serious coming down the stairs.”

She doesn’t want to talk about it just yet. “Can we talk about it at home?”

“Of course, darling, whenever you’re ready.”

Katie puts on their favourite Rolling Stones album and asks her mum about her new job.

It’s another hour before she can actually discuss the whole ‘I think I maybe accidentally found my biological parents’ thing because her grandma is up when they get home and wants to reminisce about how she met Grandpa. Now that they’re back in Canada and she can see how much Grandma is struggling after his death she hates herself for being such a brat about leaving the U.K. when her mum first suggested it after Dad left.

Her mum is sitting on the couch with a glass of wine when Katie comes in with her laptop. She starts off by showing her pictures and videos of them as teenagers and while she knows her mum sees the resemblance she can tell she’s humouring her (which is more than Katie would have done if it had been her mum sitting _her_ down and telling her she thought her bio parents might be Olympic ice dance champions). When she tells her Tessa and Scott’s moms’ names she puts her wine glass down. She shows her the childhood photos then and it’s when her mum reaches out and touches the picture of little Tessa, the one that looks so like the one of her, it’s then that Katie knows for sure.

“Do you know if her mom has had breast cancer?” Her voice is cracking a little.

“I don’t. Why?” She searches ‘Tessa Virtue mom breast cancer’ and up come pictures of Tessa and her mom dressed in pink at events, and articles about the fundraising they’ve been doing after Kate’s diagnosis.

Her mum has her face in her hands. “Over the summer, right before we moved back, I got a call from the adoption agency that your bio mom had contacted them to let them know that her mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and while it was the first known case in the family she thought it was important for you to have the option to know about your medical history.”

It’s strange after all they think they might have discovered, but it’s the first thing that leaves Katie speechless.

“I was going to tell you later, there was just so much going on with your dad, and leaving your friends, and settling into a new life here… It felt like too much.”

“Too much for me or too much for you?”

“Katie…”

“Did you not want me to know that she still cared?”

She feels awful the second the words leave her mouth. Her mum starts to tear up and she throws her arms around her. “I didn’t mean it! It just came out! I’m so, so sorry…”

“Shhhhh,” her mum rubs her back. “I know, darling, I know. This is a lot to take in, and we still don’t know anything at all for sure. Just that health news.” She breathes in and out, “And… maybe you’re a little bit right. Maybe I was apprehensive about you deciding to look for your bio parents. But Katie, we always said we wanted that to be your choice, whenever you felt like it.”

“I think… I think we should call the adoption agency,” she takes a deep breath, “and talk about finding out more about them.” She can’t get away from the certainty that she knows who they are now, as crazy as it all seems.

“Okay, we’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

Katie hasn’t cried since the day her dad announced he was going off to live with his new family, but she cries then. Her mum strokes her hair and hums their song.

“You know whoever they turn out to be, it won’t matter? Because you’re my mum, you are.”

“I know, Katie.” Her mum holds her tighter, “I know.”


	2. 'I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kind comments, it means the world. I think this chapter is the longest chapter I've ever written?! 
> 
> The biggest of thank yous to the lovely do_not_confess, the very best idea bouncer and virtual hand-holder.

**_July 2014_ **

Tessa has been doing her best to avoid the Moir family Canada Day barbecue for the past eight years, but every once in a while Alma will call her before she can think of an excuse not to attend, or ask her in a way that she can’t refuse. The last one she couldn’t get out of was in 2010 and this year Alma had re-used her lines about the Olympics, combining them with some comments about how she hadn’t seen enough of her lately to leave Tessa with no choice but to go. Her own mom thought she needed to get out of the house more.

She drives over early in the afternoon, that way she can leave in the evening and not have to be there when the sun goes down. She doesn’t want to be in the backyard at night, the clock somehow ticking back to that summer.

Virtues don’t wallow in public. There’s a bottle of pink Moscato in her fridge for when she returns to her empty house, Canada Day weekend is the one time she drinks it and lets herself taste summer kisses and what could have been.

It’s an unusually harried Alma who hugs her when she arrives. The barbecues aren’t working and Joe nearly set himself on fire trying to fix them. It’s all hands-on deck and she knows Alma is really desperate when she sends her into the kitchen to help. She’s not sure how much help she can provide there, she can dress a salad at least?

Thankfully Carol takes one look at her and puts her to work cutting up fruit. This she can handle. Cara tells her the Moir gossip she’s missed out on, Sheri reviews this year’s moonshine (a fine vintage), and it’s nice sitting here with them and all the others.

Danny’s wife Hannah comes bursting in from the backyard trying to balance three bowls in one arm and her screaming baby in the other.

“Tessa! It’s so great to see you! Would you mind…”

And all of a sudden, she’s holding a baby.

It’s not that Tessa hasn’t held babies after not getting to hold the baby, it’s just that she doesn’t actively seek out the experience. People always present their kids to her and Scott for photo opportunities and each time she thinks that if she was a mom she wouldn’t go around handing her baby to someone just because they were an Olympian.

But the baby in her arms now isn’t any baby, it’s a Moir baby with Moir eyes. Jack is six months old, born around the new year. He’s staring at her intently and she wonders if it’s her earrings he’s interested in, he’s at the right age for starting to perceive detail more clearly.

She catalogues him in parts, the dark hair almost covering his head, the button nose, the drooling mouth, the chubby hands he’s waving, the warmth of his torso against her hands, the feet resting on her legs, the smell of talcum powder and something sweet she can’t identify. If she took all of him in at once she might think of who he might look like, what she would have looked like at this age, what she would have felt like in her arms. If she thought about all that she’d fall apart right here in the kitchen.

“Hey Jack,” she smiles because babies should always be greeted with smiles, “it’s so good to meet you properly.”

He smiles a little half smile, like he’s trying it on for size, and then he gives her a grin and she feels like her heart is contracting and expanding all at once.

“Are you an angel?” Hannah asks when she returns to Tessa’s side. “All he’s been doing is screaming since this morning!”

“The Moir men loooove Tessa,” comments one of the Moir cousins over by the stove. She thinks it’s Ashley, the one who set Scott up with Cassandra. If she’s bitter about that ending Tessa doesn’t see what that’s got to do with her. How is it her fault that Scott took up with a curler in Sochi?

Hannah rolls her eyes a little. “And why wouldn’t they?”

Tessa smiles at her and bounces Jack on her knee gently. He starts babbling and it might be the best sound she’s heard in a while.

“I have to run back home to get more food, would you mind watching him? I was going to take him with me but he’s so content now.”

“Of course not!” What else can she say? “If he gets tired of me Cara or Sheri can take him.”

“No,” they say simultaneously.

“He’s all yours,” Cara tells her.

“You’re the one with the magic touch,” Sheri nods.

Hannah throws her arms around Tessa’s neck and then kisses Jack on both cheeks. “Mommy is going to be back so soon! Auntie Tessa is going to take care of you, you lucky boy!”

Tessa doesn’t know how lucky he is, but he certainly seems to enjoy her attempts to remember nursery rhymes.

A little while after Hannah leaves something clicks. The woman who sent her a thank you card in response to the thank you card Tessa had sent her for her support during Sochi would never hand a baby to someone if she thought it could upset them. Has Danny never told his wife about the baby? Is the secret that big, that well-kept? She cuddles Jack closer to her.

When his mom’s been gone about half an hour he starts to get a little fractious. She’s not sure if it’s because he misses Hannah or if it’s due to his teeth, her dress is half drool, half white linen at this point.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” she asks as she shifts him onto her side and gets up. “We can get some fresh air.”

She’s just at the door when Scott walks in. He takes a step back when he sees her and she looks away. It’s almost as if she’s physically unable to watch him taking in the sight of her with a baby in her arms. She’s managing, she’s doing so well holding this baby with Moir eyes and dark brown hair just like his, but if she were to stop and think, to stop and feel…

They have tended to avoid each other the last few times she’s been at the Canada Day barbecue anyway, it’s just too much. He texted her a few days ago to ask if she was coming and she’d replied that she was. She had tried to ignore the pangs she felt when she noticed how long had elapsed since they last texted one another. He had sent back “Okay, cool.” and she told herself that didn’t hurt either.

But standing here in his mom’s kitchen trying to talk to him while holding his nephew? That’s a pain even she can’t pretend away. People always asked her how she managed compartment syndrome, but how could they know that compartment syndrome was child’s play for a girl who gave birth to a baby she never got to hold?

Of course she’s the one who manages to say something first. “Hey Scott, how you getting on with those barbecues?” She’s looking at Jack, not at him.

“Um, they’re fixed. That’s, ah, why I’m here. To tell everyone they’re fixed.” He sounds muddled, and she supposes he has to be.

“Thanks for that, Scott,” Cara drawls and Tessa suddenly remembers it’s not just them here, the kitchen is full of his cousins and aunts. She rubs Jack’s back.

“Good. Okay. I’ll, um, go now.” He almost stumbles on his way out.

“Jeee-suuus.” Cara shakes her head slowly and emphatically. “He should just invest in a ten-foot placard saying he’s a commitment-phobe.”

“Right?!” Sheri takes a sip of her moonshine. “He’s seeing this perfectly nice girl now and he doesn’t seem anywhere close to ready to settle down.”

Tessa ducks her head and kisses Jack, forgetting all about her bright red lipstick. Luckily, she doesn’t leave a mark.

“Did he even invite Kaitlyn here today?” Cara asks.

Sheri shrugs. "Do you think seeing Tessa like that," she gestures up and down in her and Jack’s general direction, "reminded him of how he screwed that up?”

“God, yeah.” Cara agrees. “Ruining his shot at 18 by giving you mono after he stuck his tongue down some other girl’s throat.”

“What?!”

“When you were really sick with mono that first time your legs were bothering you and you went to recuperate with your mom, didn’t he give that to you somehow?”

She’d forgotten about the mono excuse. “Scott didn’t cheat on me. He would never. I… I must have got it from an unwashed glass at a party or something.”

Sheri screws up her face. “I was so sure that was his fault somehow.”

Cara nods.

Before Tessa can think of how to go about figuring out how they got that story in their heads Hannah returns, carrying even more food.

“I get all of this and now the barbecues are fixed!! Oh my God, Tessa, you still have him? Has he been good?”

“He’s been great,” she assures her. She sits back down and positions Jack on her lap so that he can see his mom as she potters around the kitchen. His little hands grab one of hers and with a surprising amount of force he brings it up his mouth and starts sucking on her fingers.

She removes them quickly, “I’m sorry, sweetie, but my nails are painted. We don’t want you getting sick!”

She looks over at Hannah anxiously.

“Don’t worry, he only had them in for a few seconds, and he’s had much worse in there recently. Teething is a nightmare.”

Tessa didn’t paint her nails the entire time she knew she was pregnant because she’d heard it could be dangerous for unborn babies. She remembers sitting in her room in the cottage one night listening to her parents get into a fight when her mom asked her dad if he could get some hypoallergenic polish back in London for them because she wouldn’t use the ordinary stuff and her dad had just lost it. He’d said all sorts of things about how if Tessa had wanted to paint her nails like a normal teenager she should have thought about that before getting pregnant, or when she decided against having the abortion. She had curled up in her too-small bed and tried to stay calm. She wished so badly for Scott to be there. That was the first night she talked to the baby. She knew that it was good for her development, but she hadn’t wanted to confuse her. She wasn’t going to be her mom. She told her all about starting to skate with Scott and she kept kicking. It had felt like they were a team.

She holds Jack a little tighter.

“Tessa.” She turns to find another Moir brother staring at her from the doorway. “They’ve put you to work I see.”

Danny puts his hand on her shoulder just as Hannah says, “Tessa is a natural!” and she’s so glad he’s there beside her for that.

He gets down on his hunkers beside her chair and whispers, “You doing okay, T?”

She nods. She is, all things considered.

“So… I was wondering why Scott came out of the kitchen, grabbed the biggest bottle of moonshine and headed into the garage, but, uh, now I think I get it. I went in to talk to him but… He just kept talking about you and…I couldn’t get through to him.”

“I’ll go talk to him.”

She kisses Jack and hands him back to his dad. He grips onto her finger and she shakes his hand, “I’ll see you later.”

She tries to ignore the echo of emptiness and tells Cara and Sheri she’s going to see Scott. Cara raises her eyebrows a little.

It’s colder in the garden than she expected and she wraps her arms around herself as she makes her way towards the garage, greeting the various Moirs she meets.

She pauses before going in, it’s been nine years and she hasn’t set foot in it, which is so stupid really, it’s just a garage.

It looks exactly the same, down to the tartan rug she’d placed on the couch (had Scott remembered to wash it back then?). The only difference is the light, harsh from the exposed bulb, not hazy from candles.

He’s sitting on the ground with his back against the couch.

“Scott?” she says softly. “It’s me.”

He turns around, somehow looking bleary-eyed already. “Tess. I’m sorry about earlier… I just…”

“I know, it’s hard,” she soothes as she sits down beside him.

“Don’t sit on the floor, you’ll dirty your dress.”

“It’s fine, it’ll wash out. I don’t want to…”

They both look up at the couch and he nods, “Yeah.”

He offers her the bottle of moonshine he’s holding, “Want some?”

“No, thanks, I’m driving.”

“Oh, good choice.” A note of bitterness enters his voice, “Always making good choices.”

What does he mean by that?

“I miss you,” she tells him, trying to coax him back to her from wherever he’s drifting off towards. It’s not a lie, she misses him always, even when he’s right there beside her, but in some ways the space has been good. When she doesn’t see Scott she breathes easier, but then again harder too, all at the same time.

"I miss you too, kiddo. I haven’t heard from you much since we got back from tour.”

She wants to say she hasn’t heard from him much either, but she’s the one who calms, the one who reacts to his moods.

“Would it have been different if we’d won?” he asks. “I’m still so mixed up about all of it.”

Whenever she thinks about Sochi (her therapist and her mom both say she does too much of this) she gets this bitter taste in her mouth and she can’t figure out if it’s silver or blood. The gold medal she thinks should have been theirs is just another thing she lacks. Tessa sometimes feels like she’s defined by the absence of things rather than their presence.

“We skated so well but… We should have done something about Marina, said something to Skate Canada earlier.”

Tessa is so _fucking_ tired of being the calm one.

“I told you that after Worlds last year. I told you we needed to make a change.”

“I know… and I should have listened. But Marina… Marina knew about the baby, Tessa, I don’t know how but I swear to God she knew, and she’s never said anything to anyone.”

She believes that too. She’d been so gentle with her when she’d returned to Canton, not even saying anything about Tessa taking a week off training due to ‘flu’ the week of her due date. A week Tessa had spent in bed with the curtains drawn and her mom coming in to bring her soup and stroke her hair.

“I know, and I think I’ll always love her for that, but… I need more from a coach than them keeping my teenage pregnancy a secret.”

“Don’t talk about it like that,” he says gruffly, taking a swig from the bottle.

She takes it off him and drinks, coughing as it burns its way down her throat. Jesus, if this is what Sheri calls a fine vintage she doesn’t want to taste one from a bad year.

“What other way do you want me to talk about it? I was sixteen and pregnant just like the show says.” She should lower her voice, she thinks it’s ringing out too loud. “Or is it that you don’t want to talk about it all? We can just keep pretending that none of it ever happened? Not us, not the baby, none of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hannah doesn’t know! Danny’s wife, your sister-in-law, doesn’t know that I had your baby. She handed me your nephew like it was nothing,” a sob rises in her throat but she grits it out, “she talked about me being a natural with babies. Do you know what that was like for me? You took off with a bottle of moonshine because you saw me with a baby in my arms, but I stayed there and held him for an hour.”

“Tessa…” he reaches out to touch her but she shrugs him away. She feels like she could explode.

“Is it all a dirty secret to you? What we had? The baby? Would it have been easier for you if I’d had the abortion? Is that what you wanted? Is that the choice you think I should have made?”

It’s like the air fractures around them and all is silent for a second.

And then he laughs. He fucking laughs.

“Scott Moir,” she snarls, but he starts talking then and all her pain is in his voice.

“That - that’s so far from the truth. None of that is even... remotely realistic. I’m not the one who shuts down whenever anyone mentions we used to date, or, or, God forbid, I try to talk about us back then or about where she is now.” He huffs out a breath, “And as for the abortion… Tessa, for months after we signed those adoption papers I had this dream, this _fantasy_ where instead of signing I took you to the hospital and we, we held…”

His voice breaks then and he starts to cry. He’s crying and when she blinks there are tears on her cheeks too.

“We held her… and then, then you’d ask me if I thought we could do this and I’d tell you _yes_. I’d tell you yes and I’d tell you that I wanted to marry you. That I wanted to be a family. That I wanted you…” he puts one hand over his eyes, “I wanted you forever.”

Her chin is on her knees and she can’t remember when she curled up like this. This doesn’t feel real.

“Scott, we were… we were kids...”

“I know that. I’m not _stupid_ …”

“I know you’re not.” She says it so gently that’s she afraid he doesn’t hear, he just keeps talking.

“I know I’d probably have screwed it up a million different ways and she’s better off with her parents, and you’re better off too, but… that was what I dreamed about.”

She closes her eyes.

His voice is softer now, “Do you… do you think you should have had the abortion?”

“I… sometimes I think…” she sobs, so hard her whole body reverberates with it, “I just wish that was never something we had to decide.”

Sometimes she wonders if things would have been better if she’d just thought of their career, if they’d won Junior Worlds and gone to the Olympics she wouldn’t have felt the need to push it so hard in training those next two years, wouldn’t have got compartment syndrome and jeopardised his future all over again. But she doesn’t know how she can hold that thought in her head along with the holes she has in her heart. She doesn’t know how she can wonder if she should have gone through with the abortion when she thinks about her every day, when she looks into the face of every dark-haired girl who’s around the right size, searching for those Moir eyes. She doesn’t know how her body holds all this, how her heart isn’t on the outside, how her nerves aren’t fraying at the edges, how her veins aren’t open and oozing.

He takes her into his arms, “You were so young, we were both so young.”

“I miss her,” she whispers into his shirt, “I still miss her.”

It’s like they’re ghosts, both Scott and the baby. She’ll wake up in the night or early morning and think she feels his fingers in her hair or his lips on her neck. She’ll wake up with her hand on her flat stomach and feel a phantom flutter.

He kisses her hair.

She moves back a little, out of his embrace. She puts her head down on the couch.

He takes another sip from the bottle and passes it to her, she swallows and wonders how she’s going to get home now.

They sit in silence for a little while, Scott turning the bottle around in his hands and her tracing the patterns on the tartan rug.

“Do you think you’ll ever be ready for us?”

It’s so quiet she could pretend she didn’t hear. It’s so loud she could reach over and kiss him right now. She could take off his shirt and he could take off her dress and they could get up on the couch and maybe with him inside her she’d feel something close to whole, something close to found.

But she knows it would be a bad idea. She’s not ready, she doesn’t know if she ever will be. And anyway, he’s the one with the girlfriend, the one who’s had all the long-term girlfriends, it’s not like he’s been waiting for her.

“Scott, you’re dating Kaitlyn now, and she’s… she’s nice, so, so nice. And, and, normal? And she can give you things I can’t. And maybe you should…” she bites her lip, “maybe you should try and make that work. I want you to be happy, you know? I want you to have all the happiness in the world.”

“Tessa,” he breathes, “what are you trying to say?”

“I think… I think maybe I need a break? We’re taking time off skating and maybe I need some time to focus on other things. To… to not be reminded of everything every day.”

“A break from me?”

It sounds so stark when he says it out loud. “Just for a little while. So I can figure out what to do next.”

“If that’s… if that’s what you need.” His voice is so weary.

She hugs him, but only until her eyes start to fill with tears again.

It’s somehow still sunny when she goes outside and the first people she sees are Joe and Alma, who are talking with Joe’s cousin Vernon. No one likes Vernon.

“Tessa! What were you and Scotty boy up to?” His smile makes her sick.

“Shut up!” Joe and Alma say at the same time, in the same tone.

Alma puts her arm around her and leads her away, “Tessa, honey, is everything okay?”

“I’m so sorry, I drank some moonshine? It was so stupid and now I can’t drive home and…” She feels so far away, like Alma is the only thing anchoring her.

Alma wraps her into a hug. “That’s no problem. We’ll get someone to drop you back. Are you sure there isn’t anything else?”

“No, I just, I just really want to go home.”

It’s Cara who drives her and Tessa almost laughs out loud at the irony of it all. For once Cara doesn’t ask any questions, she just puts on some music and talks about skating.

 

It’s because of skating that her plan to take a break from Scott doesn’t exactly work out. The break was pointless anyway, as if not seeing him would make her stop thinking about him, about the baby. When she really considers it she wonders if maybe the way she’s feeling has less to do with them than she thinks. Maybe she’s lost in a 25 years old way, because of the future, not because of the past.

They get offers to do shows and even if the money wasn’t so good Tessa needs to skate. It’s the only thing that kept her going, after. She tells him that when they’re standing on the Great Wall of China. She tells him a lot of things. She tells him that she misses him, misses skating. She tells him she wants to compete again, that she thinks they should try again for the Olympics, try again for that gold. He tells her yes and they walk back down hand in hand.

Neither of them mentions that this is the first time they’ve held hands off-ice in years.

Things get better. It takes work, but things get better.

 

_**September 2021** _

Tessa wants Scott.

This isn’t news, on some level she always wants him. It’s like how she knows she has a stomach but she doesn’t really feel it unless she’s hungry or has cramps. It’s always there somewhere in the background, but right now as she stares at him saying goodbye to Marie-France and Patrice it’s the only thing on her mind.

He’s never been more attractive to her than he is now (which is saying something). She can see how defined his arms are in the shirt she bought him last Christmas. She could feel how defined they were earlier when they were on the ice together. His hair is at her favourite length, and she likes that there’s a little silver there. She’d noticed it under the rink lights. He’d told her that all he wanted for his birthday was to skate with her, and it’s things like that make her want him most.

She thinks she’s spent the whole night one cocktail away from dragging him into a bathroom stall, or maybe dragging him back to his apartment.

She can’t decide what she wants more, for them to fuck hard and fast like they never had the chance to, or for it to be soft and slow like she’s sixteen again and all she knows of sex is making love. That phrase would make her gag if she thought about it in conjunction with anyone else, but how else could she describe what it had been like between her and Scott back then?

She wants both. She wants it all. She wants him every single goddamn way.

She wants him above her telling her he loves her. She wants him beneath her with one hand on her hip and the other in her hair. She wants him behind her whispering filthy things into her ear. She wants her fingers in his hair and his tongue on her clit.

She wants him kissing her temple and telling her to leave her work and come to bed, she wants to have his hand on her back at family brunch when she’s holding Jordan’s baby, she wants him with her always.

She wants, she wants, she wants.

“Pour vous, mademoiselle.” The barman places a glass in front of her. It’s a Long Island Iced Tea. With a straw.

“Sorry, I didn’t order this.”

She’s about to try saying it in French when he says, “The gentleman over there did.”

She looks over to where he’s pointing. A man in a suit raises his scotch to her.

Not this shit. She gives a curt smile and goes back to staring at Scott’s ass, hoping the guy takes a hint.

She’s slept with she doesn’t know how many versions of that guy. They were all the same. They all told her how hot she was, how much they liked strong, independent women (spoiler alert: they didn’t). If she slept with them more than once they always wanted to do it without a condom. She always said no, said that though of course she believed them when they said they were clean, she couldn’t take the pill because of side effects and they didn’t want to have a baby now, did they? They never knew about her IUD.

More than anything they wanted her to talk to them during sex. She doesn’t see why they couldn’t just get on with things. If Tessa wanted to talk during sex she’d ring up one of those two dollar a minute phone lines.

It all seemed so… performative. Not the way it had been with Scott, not even the way it was with them on the ice. People seemed to think the way they had acted during practices was some ploy for the judges, or the fans, but it wasn’t, at least not initially. It calmed her to have him touching her, whispering to her. It made it feel like it was just them. It had been Igor who wanted them to use that, to push it further. Marina had taken her aside afterwards the first time he brought it up and told her she shouldn’t feel she had to do anything that would make her uncomfortable or make things harder than they were. Even when they were competing, performing as different characters, underneath it all they were still just Tessa and Scott, and his hand in her hair still reminded her of that summer. She’d dyed it the first time so she wouldn’t think of him every time she touched it, but it was no use.

She’d found that a good baseline judgement for a therapist was how they handled her and Scott’s on-ice relationship and the guys she dated. If they acted like some kind of genius for figuring out she and Scott were living out what they wouldn’t allow themselves to have off-ice she smiled and didn’t come back. If they thought it was insightful when they remarked that she’d only slept with guys she couldn’t see herself having kids with ever since Scott she worried for the sake of their other clients.

“Tessa! It’s so good to see you!”

She jolts her head up to Madi Hubbell’s face. “Madi! It’s been forever.”

They hug, and then Madi sits down beside her.

“How is your mom doing?”

“Really well, thanks. The doctors are happy with how chemo went. She practically kicked me out of the house when I got the job in Toronto.” She still went back to London for a day or two each week.

“Oh yes! With the charity supporting teenage girls. Scott will not shut up about it.”

She smiles and looks over to see him hugging Marie-France and Patrice who are actually leaving now.

“I love it.” It’s only part-time so she can be around for her mom, and because she still has some endorsement deals and fashion collaborations, but she thinks it’s what she wants to do more permanently. “How are you doing? You must be sick of people asking about prepping for the Olympics.”

Madi nods, and then starts to tell Tessa all about how the reason she was late to Scott’s birthday party is because she and Zach had to change their whole schedule now that Gabi and Guillaume don’t want to share ice with them anymore.

Tessa reaches for the Long Island Iced Tea. She still misses competing every once in a while, but rink drama she does not miss. Well, she doesn’t miss being in the middle of it, she has no problem with listening to Scott tell her about it after his day at work.

She studies the imprint her berry lipstick has made on the straw. She wonders what it would look like on his skin, on his…

“Tessa, did you hear me?”

“Oh, sorry! I was in my own little world.”

“I was just asking how long you were staying in Montréal?”

“I have to go back to London tomorrow, it’s my niece’s birthday on Sunday and my mom and I promised we’d get stuff to decorate for my brother.” His wife is expecting their third baby any day now.

“So you came just for Scott’s birthday? For one night?”

She nods.

“Tessa…,” Madi is looking at her very seriously. “Are you aware that you and Scott are emotionally dating?”

“Emotionally dating?” she repeats. “Is that a new relationship status?” She thought she was up on that kind of thing.

“No… it’s that… you’re fulfilling the emotional roles of a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever you want to call it, but not…” Madi waves her hands a little.

“Sleeping together?” She sips her drink and is surprised to find it’s almost all gone when her straw makes that stupid slurping noise. “No, we’re definitely not doing that.”

And with the tone she just used her feelings on that subject must be very clear to Madi.

She clears her throat, “I mean, we’re best friends, we’ve been partners for so long, of course we… emotionally support one another.”

“He drove seven hours in the dead of night to be with you after your mom’s first chemo session over the summer. He didn’t tell anyone he was going. Marie and Patch were losing it the next morning, I don’t know if they were angry or just scared. But then he rang and said he’d gone to see you.”

Her mom had been so ill, and she’d been so worried. He hadn’t told her he was coming either. She’d seen the lights of his car at 4am and thought it might be Jordan. She started crying when she saw it was him and he’d held her in the doorway for she didn’t know how long. He stayed for a few days, cooked enough food for weeks and froze it all, giving her detailed instructions on how to reheat everything. He read aloud to her mom from those thrillers they both liked and he had dragged Tessa out to the rink when Jordan or one of her brothers was around.

She can’t help but look over at where he’s standing talking to the guys he plays hockey with. “That’s just Scott though, he’s the best person I know.”

“It’s not the going to support you thing that stands out, that’s what people do for their friends. It’s the dropping everything in the middle of the night not telling a soul part.”

Tessa has to give her that one.

“And even before that, you were inseparable the whole time you were doing your MBA.”

Sometimes she thinks that if she hadn’t gone home, if her mom hadn’t got sick and she were still in Montréal, something would have happened by now. It would have been so easy to just kiss him when they were watching Netflix after he made her dinner one evening. It would have been natural, not something that involved planning and declarations.

“Wait, how do you know we’re not dating dating?”

“Um,” Madi looks shame-faced, “I may have recently become aware that you and Scott haven’t had sex in like fifteen years?”

“What?! How, how did you come by this information?” It had to have been Scott, but why?

“Well, we were out for drinks a few weeks ago and Zach was being…”

“Zach?” Tessa supplies.

“Yeah. He wanted us all to talk about the best we’d ever had…”

Tessa holds up her hand. “I’m sorry, your ex-boyfriend and current dance partner wanted you to play a game where you all talked about the best sex you ever had?!”

Madi rolls her eyes and nods. And people think Tessa is the one with a messed-up dance partnership. She must remember to tell Kaitlyn about this.

“So, Scott just said your name but gave no details…”

Tessa squeaks.

“Don’t look so shocked, I know you’re loving this.” That might be true. “Anyway, then Zach stated badgering him, and it got kind of…”

“Crude?”

“Yeah. And eventually Scott was just like ‘We haven’t been together like that since we were teenagers! Don’t you ever talk about her like that again!’”

“Oh, I see,” she swallows. “Well, if you want to be really accurate, it’s more like sixteen years since we had sex, or it will be in a week or so.” It had been in the back of his car, a few days before they’d found out she was pregnant. She could do with a few more details on this whole confrontation thing. She drags a finger across her collarbone absentmindedly “So, did Scott get… physical or anything?”

Madi laughs. “He didn’t swing for him if that’s what you’re thinking, it was more this controlled rage.”

That totally had been what Tessa was picturing, Scott leaping up in defence of her honour. The controlled rage works for her too though, she can hear his voice in her ear. It’s probably a good thing she hadn’t been there. She wouldn’t have been so controlled, she probably would have jumped him. She slurps some of the melted ice mush.

Madi’s voice softens. “I don’t want to pry, you don’t have to answer, but… you two would be so good together, and it looks like it’s something you both want. Is there a reason you… aren’t?”

“Yeah, there are reasons.” She looks down at the ground. She likes Madi, and she’s telling more people now, but she’s not someone she can talk to about the baby.

“Okay, and do you think those are reasons you can move beyond?”

Tessa thinks of Helen, her therapist, the only one she thinks who’s ever really understood her, and she realises that she booked her first appointment right after Scott came to stay. “I’m trying, I’m trying very hard.”

Madi reaches out and squeezes her hand. Tessa smiles and blinks away her tears.

“Well, now that I’ve made you cry, do you want to trash talk about the costumes people were wearing at summer competitions?”

She laughs, “That sounds much more fun.”

That’s what they do until Scott appears by her side.

“It’s the birthday boy!” Madi exclaims. “I’m sorry for monopolising your guest of honour.”

“It’s okay,” Scott grins. “We were skating together all afternoon, she probably needed a break from me.”

“Never,” she tells him. His hand is on the back of her stool, so close to her bare shoulder.

“I’m definitely feeling my age, kiddo, I’m going to head back. Do you want to come now or will you get an Uber later? You still have your spare, right?”

“I’m good to go now.” She smiles up at him, he has the kindest eyes.

“I’ll go get your jacket.”

She gets up and hugs Madi. “I’m sorry for running off…”

“Don’t you dare apologise, I was basically pushing you into his arms metaphorically earlier. I should go home anyway, Olympic season and all that.”

“You’re going to crush it,” Tessa says firmly.

“They absolutely are,” Scott agrees. He helps her into her leather jacket.

Madi heads out and Tessa accompanies Scott on his journey around the bar saying goodbye to all his friends. He keeps a gentle hand on her back the whole time. She waves to the guy who bought her the drink, it seems the polite thing to do.

She tells Scott all about Madi’s take on the goings on at Gadbois when they’re in the Uber back to his apartment.

When they get inside she leans on him as she takes off her heels and then he carries them into the living room for her. She follows him into the kitchen where he pours two large glasses of water and hands one to her.

“There’s Tylenol in the bathroom for you to take in the morning.” How does he make drinking water look good? Surely that’s not fair.

“Why do you think I’ll need painkillers?”

“Tessa, you and Marie were knocking back Old Fashioneds, and then you were drinking that one that’s full of alcohol.”

“Madi drove me to drinking that one when she launched into her rink drama.” She rolls her eyes, “Some guy sent it over.”

“Oh.” His face isn’t giving much away.

“I’m not seeing anyone. Or trying to see anyone. I mean, at least not someone I’d meet in a bar.” She sounds so… formal. Why is she like this?

“I’m not seeing anyone either,” he says simply.

“S’cool.” A totally normal response.

“School? You’re done with school now.” He looks so confused.

She puts down her glass. “No, it’s cool. Like, a contraction? I smashed the two words together?” She demonstrates with her hands, probably a bit overenthusiastically, and then just moves her hands up and down. This isn’t embarrassing at all.

He grins, “You’re definitely going to need the Tylenol.”

“Maybe,” she allows.

“You should get to bed, you have to be up early.”

“Don’t remind me.”

He leans over and kisses her forehead. “Thanks for coming. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

“Where else would I be?”

He smiles so wide and open that it reminds her of him at seventeen in a hotel hallway and she can’t quite believe how she can love him even more now than she did back then.

He wishes her good night and they head off to their separate bedrooms. She grabs the t-shirt she brought to sleep in and her toiletries and goes to the bathroom. It’s only after she’s got changed and taken off all her make-up that she realises she forgot to pack toothpaste. She checks the cabinets, but while Scott has thought to supply his guests with Tylenol, tampons (Tessa’s brand no less), and condoms, there is no toothpaste to be found. She’ll just have to go knock on his door.

She looks at her skinny jeans and stringy top and there’s no way she has the energy to put those on again. And the bedroom with her clothes for tomorrow feels so far away.

So, the Moir Skate Shop t-shirt it is. This is fine. It’s not like he hasn’t seen her legs before. He’s touched every inch of them, kissed them even, once upon a time.

She takes her toothbrush and holds it out in front of her while she knocks on his door, she doesn’t know whether it looks like a weapon or peace offering.

She must be more drunk than she thought because for a second when he opens the door she thinks she sees him sway.

He’s shirtless, because of course he is. He never could get to sleep with a shirt on, he always got too hot. He’s wearing plain red pyjama bottoms slung low on his hips, and if Tessa stares for longer than is strictly socially acceptable, well, she has had a lot to drink. There’s a lot to admire, maybe she should start FaceTime-ing him during his gym sessions, he clearly still goes a lot.

He clears his throat, it’s weird that he hasn’t said anything yet actually. “Is everything okay, Tess?”

She shakes her toothbrush, had he not noticed it? “I forgot my toothpaste and I couldn’t find any in your guest bathroom? I checked all the cabinets.”

“Really?” He opens his door wider and ushers her in. “Chiddy probably stole it the last time he visited.”

She laughs, but she’s distracted by his bedroom. The smell of him almost overwhelms her, woodsy but fresh, summer and skating rinks. He doesn’t have much in the way of decorations, just a Canada flag and a Leafs poster on the walls.

He shows her into his en suite, which is surprisingly large.

“You have a bath?” Tessa has never had sex in a bath before.

“Uh, yeah.” She turns around to see him running his hand through his hair.

He turns on the tap and she rinses her toothbrush before he puts a dollop of toothpaste on hers and then his own.

She perches on the bath, trying to pull the t-shirt down as if he hasn’t seen her in black lace before.

“Did Cara send you the t-shirt?” he asks.

She nods while methodically circling her toothbrush. Cara had sent her some Moir Skate merchandise… but this one he’d left behind at her mom’s house in London.

“S’cool.” He starts brushing his teeth too.

She tries not to think about how domestic this is, tries to avoid ogling his shirtless chest. It’s when she’s looking around the room that she realises he seems to be doing his best to avoid staring at her legs. Their eyes lock for just a second and she feels like she’s on fire. She has to look away.

Could it be that easy? Could she just walk over to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and lean in? Would he kiss her back and hold her closer? After all this time should she just go for it?

He spits into the sink and rinses his toothbrush.

She follows suit.

They both look up into the mirror.

She wants this, but she’s still so scared. She thinks she needs just a little more time.

She turns her head to the side, leans over the tiny distance it takes to reach his face, and kisses his cheek.

“Good night, Scott.”

“Tessa?” He calls her name when she’s almost at his bedroom door and she turns around. “Sweet dreams.”

“I’ll be thinking about you.” Her eyes go so wide when the words come out of her mouth.

Scott blinks and leans an arm against the doorway to the en suite. He smiles and says ever so softly, “I’ll be thinking about you, too.”

She feels like she’s fifteen and he’s just told her he wants to kiss her. She smiles back, first at him and then down at the ground when she twirls on her heels and leaves.

They don’t mention it the next day but they’re both weirdly cheerful for people who drank all night and have to go the airport. He hugs her for an extra long time at departures, and she kisses his cheek when she says goodbye.

 

She has to wait until her appointment on Thursday to tell Helen all of this.

She gives her a rundown on all the weekend’s events (maybe skimping on some of the details on her lusting after Scott in the bar), and then asks, “Did you know I’ve been working so hard in therapy to, uh, get to a place where I could… be with Scott? Not that that’s the only reason I’m here but… Did you know that from the beginning? Because I didn’t.”

Helen smiles, “Tessa, you’re a psych major, you know I’m not a mind reader.” She moves her head from side to side, “I did think it was interesting however that from the very beginning you were coming to me with very goal-oriented activities, it seemed like you were working towards something.”

She supposes that’s true. She’d told Helen about her pregnancy and the adoption process in their first session (the one time that had happened, she’d waited until session three with even the woman in Montréal who’d been helpful, the one who told her that decisions didn’t always have to be rational to be right) and asked her to help her practice sharing that with people. She’d told Kaitlyn that weekend.

“Well, I don’t think we should role play me telling Scott I want to be with him. That would be awkward.” It would definitely preclude her from practising any of the options that involve kissing him.

“Is that the step you want to make next?”

“It’s what I want to do… I just get so frightened whenever I think about it. I wanted to kiss him, to, to _be_ with him so badly last Friday but… when the moment came I just couldn’t go through with it.”

“Is there something in particular that you feel is holding you back?”

“I think I’m just scared.” She pauses, “My sister thinks I’m punishing myself.”

“And what do you think about that idea?”

The last time Jordan had brought it up was when Tessa had been sobbing holding her newborn nephew and Jordan, acting like she was now the fount of maternal wisdom after being a mom for all of two hours, had told her she needed to forgive herself and get back together with Scott. She was almost insulted that her sister assumed her tears were about her past, couldn’t she just have been happy to meet her nephew? Tessa was fine with holding babies now. She needed to be what with everyone she knew having one.

“When I was younger, yeah, I thought I’d ruined Scott’s life and I didn’t deserve to be with him, and he thought he’d ruined mine. But we didn’t. We were in a really difficult situation, and… there’s no right choice, but we made the best choice for us.”

(She hadn’t known Scott had felt that way until right before they’d moved to Montréal. He had been helping her pack stuff at her house all day and when they turned on the tv as they ate take-out that evening there was some man shouting at his daughter telling her that teenage pregnancy ruined girls’ lives.

It was as if Scott was frozen. She took the remote control from him and turned off the tv. “That’s bullshit.”

He was still looking straight ahead, “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “You do remember we won the Olympics?”

He laughed shortly. “That does ring a bell.”

“And I went to college and got a degree? And I get to go train with you again? I have a great life, Scott.”

He grasped her hand.

“I… I used to think…,” she started, “Did you ever think that I ruined…”

“Never.” His eyes were closed and he spoke with as much conviction as she’s ever heard from him. “You’re still skating with me after, what, nineteen years? I have the best life.”

She rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “When I said we should talk about this more I didn’t think we’d jump right in at ruining lives.”

“We did make that decision on the Great Wall of China. It figures we’d put it into practice with something big.”

She’d told him then that she wanted them to spend time with each other this time around, to actually talk about the past.

“And I know she has a great life too,” she whispered. He turned around to look at her and her voice got stronger, “She has great parents, and they love her, and I know she’s happy.”

She’d let him pull her close to him then.)

Telling this to Helen now years later it strikes her that maybe this had been a hint that he wouldn’t be averse to renewing their romantic relationship. Had it been a sign that he’d broken up with Kaitlyn so soon after that conversation?

Helen drags her back to the present. “What is it that scares you about a romantic relationship with Scott?”

“That it wouldn’t work out. If it didn’t…” her chest tightens, “I would be… decimated.” Tessa has been through a lot, maybe not a lot in the grand scheme of human life, but still a lot; but that would be too much.

Helen hands her a tissue. “You know what I’m going to ask you.”

Tessa wipes her eyes. “What if it did work out?”

She nods.

“If it did work out…” She closes her eyes, “It would be everything.”

Helen lets the moment settle before suggesting, “Seeing as you don’t want to do a role play I’m going to use one of your other favourites – you know when you’re being hard on yourself and I ask you to think about what you’d tell a friend in that situation?”

She always gets her with that one.

“I want you to imagine a friend, but I want it to be a specific friend. I want you to think about if Scott was feeling this way, that he wanted a relationship but was scared about what could go wrong, or whether he was ready, what would you want him to do?”

The immediacy of her answer surprises her, it’s as if she’s been waiting to be asked for a long time. “I’d want to know. Even if I wasn’t ready, I’d want to know that he felt that way. I’d need him to know that I felt the same.” God, he probably is feeling that way. She knows that he loves her, and she knows that he wants her too, has thought about the look in his eyes in his bathroom last weekend every night since.

“I have to tell him.” She feels like getting into her car and driving to Montréal, but that would be pointless because he’s in France for a Junior Grand Prix event.

“Would you like to make a plan about when? Or how?”

“Well, he’s abroad for work this weekend so maybe I could go visit him next week? I can’t do this over the phone, it needs to be face to face.”

“Okay. Are there any steps you can take between then and now to get ready for that?”

Update her lingerie collection. “I guess I could think about what I’m going to say, maybe practice a little?”

“Sure, it doesn’t have to be a full speech. Maybe just get used to saying out loud what you’ve been keeping inside.”

Tessa nods, that sounds good. She’d feel stupid performing a full monologue in her kitchen or wherever, but she doesn’t want to freeze when the time comes.

“And if the time comes and you feel like you’re not ready that’s okay too. You don’t have to get things right perfectly the first time, remember?”

Tessa smiles. In one of their early sessions she’d told Helen about her worry that she’d had one chance at a relationship with Scott and she’d lost that. Helen had asked her had she only taken one shot at the other things that were important to her – skating, school – and Tessa had admitted that she hadn’t. She’d realised that if Scott was more important to her than those things that maybe that didn’t mean she only got one chance, maybe it meant she should make every effort possible to ensure it worked.

She looks at the clock and sees their time is up. “Same time two weeks?” Their appointment schedule has been locked in for months now.

“I’ll be here, and, as always, if anything comes up you know you can call or we can see about an extra session.”

“You just want to hear what happens between me and Scott,” she jokes.

Helen laughs. “I’ll see you soon, Tessa. Have a great weekend.”

She’s smiling as she drives the short distance from Helen’s office to her mom’s house. When she pulls in her phone starts ringing. ‘Vera (New Beginnings)’ is just about the last name she expected to see.

Tessa listens more than she talks during that conversation. It’s hard to take it all in. Her mom’s next-door neighbour is mowing the lawn and it reminds her of how there’d been a car alarm going off all afternoon when she’d taken the pregnancy tests and they’d sat and waited for the answer to each one. She hadn’t understood how normal things were still happening when it felt like her world was caving in on her.

She manages to say thank you to Vera, to tell her that she’ll talk to her later. There’s only one person she wants to talk to right now.

She takes a second and then presses 1. She had only put Scott on speed dial when she’d moved back to London to stay with her mom when she got sick, she hadn’t trusted herself with it before then.

He picks up almost immediately. “Hey Tess! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you this early! Practice is going good out here.”

It’s then that she starts crying. He sounds so happy and relaxed and she’s about to turn his world upside down, again.

“Tessa, what’s wrong? Is it your mom?”

She cries harder and harder.

“Tessa, I need you to breathe for me. Just listen to me okay? In… and out… In… and out…”

She listens to him breathing and tries to match him.

“Scott, Vera from the adoption agency called me.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“She rang them, or I guess her mom did. And… she wants to know more about us, she wants to meet us if that’s something we want.”

_In… and out…_

_In… and out…_

_In… and out…_

The line is silent for what feel like the longest time until she hears him, low-voiced and vulnerable, but somehow still so strong. “I wish I was there with you. I, I don’t know what to say and I wish I was _there_.”

She sobs, “I wish you were here, too.” She’s holding her chest like she’s trying to keep her heart inside.

“I can get a flight out, Tess. Patch is here, he can manage both teams.”

“No, don’t do that, they need you. We just… we need to decide what we want to do.”

“What do you want to do?”

She doesn’t need to think about it. “I want to meet her. I want to know all I can know. And… if you’re not ready for that I understand, but… I need to do this, Scott.” She can feel it in the very core of her.

“That’s what I want, too.”

She sighs, relieved. She doesn’t know if she could do this without him. “Okay, I’ll ring back and let Vera know. She’s going to call you later anyway, but I had to talk to you about it.”

“I’m glad it was you. I don’t think it would have felt real otherwise.”

“I know. I don’t think it felt real to me until I heard your voice. We’d talked about it but…,” she closes her eyes, “It was all so abstract then.”

Over the summer, when she was ringing the adoption agency to update them on the family medical history, she’d asked Scott how he felt about amending their side of the adoption agreement to state that they were open to contact if that was something she wanted. Tessa hadn’t been able to contemplate the idea of ever meeting her later back when she’d been pregnant or in the time after the birth, really, she hadn’t been ready to deal with that possibility until after PyeongChang. Scott had said yes straight away.

“I thought it wouldn’t be until after she turned eighteen, if ever.”

“We’re going to meet her,” she says softly.

“I wish I could hold you.” He doesn’t say things like that. “I’m not… I just…”

“Of course… I know…” She inhales, then exhales. “I wish I could hold you, too.”

They’re quiet for a minute before he asks, “Where are you now?”

“Right outside my mom’s. I was about to go in when I got the call.”

“That’s good. Shit, how am I going to tell my mom?”

“I can drive over later and let her know if you like?”

“Would that be too hard?”

“No, it feels… right. She was the one with me that morning, all those months really.”

“Yeah.” He goes quiet again. “Are you sure you don’t want me to fly home?”

“Take care of Sabine and Luc. You can come after, or, you know, whenever the meeting is going to be.” It’s funny that out of all the coaches at Gadbois it’s the one with the least French who’s the primary coach for their youngest French team, but Scott has a great bond with them. She misses watching them work together.

“I’ll change my return flight to Toronto. We have practice now, but you call me if you need me. Promise me you will?”

“I promise. And you too.”

“I’ll talk to you later, Tess. Iloveyou, bye.”

He says the last part so quickly before hanging up that she’s left to practise telling him she loves him to an empty car.

Her legs shake as she walks into the house. When she sees her mom she throws her arms around her and cries.


	3. 'can't let you slide through my hands'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thank yous to M, my Canadian dictionary. Another million thank yous to do_not_confess the kindest, most patient, and wisest friend to have on this writing journey.

_**July 2006** _

He can’t believe he’s back in the stupid freaking garage on Canada Day. It’s raining (he thinks Tessa would call that pathetic fallacy), so he and his brothers and Cara and Sheri are inside playing cards. He’s on the floor with Danny and Charlie while the girls are on the couch. They’ve all been drinking the moonshine his uncle sent pretty heavily, except Sheri who has sworn never to touch the stuff again after last year. There’s music in the background, some classic rock, maybe the Stones, but Scott isn’t really taking it in.

“I miss Tessa,” Cara announces.

“Ughhh, me too!” Sheri sighs, “We had so much fun last year. At least during the actual barbecue, not so much afterwards for me.”

If only Sheri knew what had happened in the months after the barbecue for Tessa and him, then she’d know what not so much fun was. He’s been wondering what Tessa is doing all day, he didn’t know whether he should ask her when they’d said goodbye after training yesterday.

“How _did_ you mess that up?” Cara asks him.

“Why are you so sure it was Scotty?” Sheri wonders.

Cara raises her eyebrows at her and she then nods as if in agreement.

It’s not like Cara’s wrong. “I ruined everything.”

Charlie makes to offer him the moonshine bottle but Danny stops him. Scott reaches out and takes the bottle anyway.

“You didn’t give her that nasty case of mono, did you?” Cara sounds scandalised, like it’s an STD.

He doesn’t think the mono excuse was all that credible as a reason to have to go live in seclusion, no matter how sick people got with it, but they couldn’t have people landing in on Tessa. Couldn’t have people figuring out Jim and Kate’s pride and joy was the first Virtue to have a teen pregnancy, or at least a teen pregnancy out of wedlock (Scott figures it must have happened back when that was acceptable).

“Something like that,” he says eventually.

Sheri shakes her head sadly. “That might have been your only chance with her.”

He knows this. He takes a drink.

“Tessa is special, you know that, right?” He’s not an _idiot_. “It’s not like there are going to be girls like that just lining up around the block to be with you.”

“I don’t want any other girls, Cara.”

“Well, you probably should have thought of that before…” she mutters.

She can never let something go. His whole body tenses. “Just give it a rest,” he snaps.

“Scott,” Charlie puts up both his hands, “chill, man.”

“Shut up, Charlie.” Maybe if Charlie wasn’t so chill all the time he wouldn’t have had too many beers last year and he could have driven her home. Or maybe he was okay to drive and Scott should have just gone along with it and Tessa could be here right now, tucked in under his arm and whispering what cards he should play into his ear.

Charlie puts his arm out as if to calm him or something and Scott pushes it out of the way. He’s so fucking tired of everyone telling him to calm down.

Danny just motions his head towards the door. Scott gets up and leaves.

He paces around the garden, it’s raining still but he doesn’t care. He feels like he’s going to boil over. He feels like that almost all the time now. When someone cuts them off at the rink, when guys look at Tessa for too long, when fucking Fedor had said in the changing room that she’d come back curvier after her time away, that maybe it wouldn’t be the best for her skating but it was nice to see her with more tits and ass. He had boiled over then, had pushed him up against the wall and punched that dick. It was easier to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off his Abercrombie and Fitch face than to think about the fact he himself had spent at least ten minutes at lunch suppressing awful thoughts about how much the changes to her body turned him on.

He’s no better than any of them. He thinks about how her body has changed all the time, he feels it on the ice, the new curve to her hip under his hand, the difference when they’re pressed up close, but he hasn’t seen it, not the way he dreams about. He still wonders what she looked like when she was pregnant. He hadn’t seen her often enough and when he had she was always wearing something loose and baggy.

He’s worse than all those other guys, much worse, because they hadn’t had fantasies of her like that. Only he had thought about what it would be like when she was pregnant… how she would have felt around him, his hands roaming all over her, how they’d have figured out which position worked best. He had known it was sick, she was in this situation, probably hating every second of it, all because he couldn’t keep it in his pants, and there he was, thinking of her every time he touched himself. He tried not to think of her, at least tried to think of her before, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough material – the glow of her skin under candlelight, the sounds she made when she came, the feel of her hair, the smell of her, the taste – all etched into him with indelible ink, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

At least he doesn’t do that anymore (only very rarely).

He's just so full of emotion all the time. If Tessa appears to be feeling nothing, he’s feeling everything. But how would he know what she’s feeling when she won’t talk to him, not properly, not like before?

No one understands. None of them know what he’s been through. None of them know what it’s like to have your girlfriend flinch from your touch after all the pregnancy tests say positive, or to have her whisked off after she decides to go through with the pregnancy and then only see her at weekends when the one thing she will talk about is the adoption process. She couldn’t seem to look him in the eye but he couldn’t help staring at her, maybe those things they said about pregnant women glowing were true, her hair had looked even shinier than usual. She never touched him then either, always sitting too far away. Sometimes she’d have her hands on her stomach and he wanted to ask what it felt like, was the baby moving? The one time he nearly had Kate had walked in and the next time he glanced at Tessa she had her hands behind her back.

He’s even angry at Tessa sometimes, angry at her for shutting him out, or maybe for letting Kate shut him out (it hurts that Kate can’t look him in the eye anymore, she’d almost been a second mom to him, had encouraged him about school, had shared all those detective stories they both liked). But he can’t let her see that, she’s been through enough, he forgets about it the minute he’s with her because all he sees is how blank her eyes are, how quiet she is. The Tessa that came back to him is equal parts stronger and more fragile than before. They had always done everything together, but now she’s journeyed to a place where he can’t reach her. He goes over to the apartment she and her mom live in sometimes, and they just sit, usually in silence, and watch _Jeopardy!_ while Kate hovers somewhere in the background. One time the category had been infant development in the first year of life and he’d gone to switch it off but Tessa had stopped him. She’d held his hand with a death grip and got all the questions right immediately. He doesn’t know what to make of that. Why did she know all this stuff? It made him feel so good and yet so guilty to have her hold his hand outside a rink again.

The only place Tessa seems like herself is on the ice, she’s somehow even stronger than she was before, skating better than ever just five months after giving birth (and it’s the one time he thinks he wants people to know, just so they’d realise how amazing she is). The only place he feels like himself is on the ice, too. He’s not thinking of choices or what could have beens when all that’s in his head is skating - how much he loves it, how much he loves skating with her, competing with her, winning with her. They’re working every hour they can to make up for the time they lost, she even said yes when he asked her to come skate with him at the Ilderton rink this weekend. If he doesn’t get to have Tessa, if he can’t make her happy that way, then he’s going to be the best skater he can be and make damn sure they achieve everything she can dream.

He still imagines it sometimes, what it might have been like if they were a family. He kept picturing them lying out on a blanket at the barbecue today, their baby in between them. In his fantasies Tessa is always smiling, he knows it wouldn’t have been easy (he knows it might well have been impossible) but he can’t help dreaming that she’d be happier if they’d kept her. He would have made sure she was smiling.

But that’s all they are – fantasies. Tessa probably never dreamed about keeping the baby, she was too sensible for that. He’s just out here in the drizzle alone.

He kicks one of his mom’s flowerpots, clearly with more force than he intended because it careens towards the house, shattering on impact.

Shit.

He sees a figure rise from the table through the kitchen window and make its way to the side door.

“Vernon! Are you still out there?” his mom shouts.

“It’s me, Mom,” he calls out. “It’s Scott.”

“SCOTT!” Her voice goes up about twenty decibels. “What are you doing?! Get in here right this second!”

Her eyes are murderous when he gets inside. This is not about the flowerpot.

“You reek of alcohol,” she spits out.

He leans against the kitchen counter. He’s not in the mood for a lecture.

“I know today must have been hard for you without Tessa, it’s been a hard year, Scott. But not just for you, for all of us.” She pours out the end of the red wine bottle on the table into her glass.

“It was hardest for me! None of you got… got the… your girlfriend pregnant and gave away the baby.”

(“Place,” he hears Tessa hiss in his head, gripping onto one of those endless binders or books she had. “We are _placing_ the baby with parents who can… who will love her. We are not giving her away.” It was one of the few times she seemed to show any emotion during those months. And it’s that memory that makes him think she cared about the baby more than he could ever understand.)

None of them hadn’t gone to see their baby in hospital and felt sick about it every day since.

“It was hardest for you? What about Tessa? Is there a competition for which of you suffered more?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Why won’t she get that he was talking about the Moirs?

“Really? Because I feel like all I’ve seen recently is you getting angry and making a scene or moping around. It’s all been about you.”

How can she think that? How can she not know that he thinks about Tessa, about what she went through, what she went through because of _him,_ all the time?

“None of you let me near her when she was pregnant! How am I meant to be there for her now?” Don’t they understand why he’s angry? “You didn’t even call to tell me she was having the baby. Nobody… nobody told me until it was too late.” Had Tessa not wanted him there? He’s not even sure he could handle knowing the answer to that.

“Oh, Scott,” her voice is softer now. “It wouldn’t have been fair to you. You’d have wanted to drive up and be there. You couldn’t have driven all that way while you were going out of your mind about Tessa. And… it all happened so fast. One minute we were on the couch drinking hot chocolate and the next… She was so scared, and so was I.” She puts her hands over her eyes, she looks so tired, so much older now. Is that due to him and his mess? “If you had been there when Kate’s baby girl was giving birth prematurely and none of us knew what on earth was going to happen Kate would have murdered you with her bare hands, and I, I don’t think I’d have been able to bring myself to stop her. I was so scared, Scott. I, I thought something terrible could happen and how would I tell you?”

Scott feels himself slide down to the ground.

“I remember every single awful second and I keep replaying them in my head over and over again… She was so young, so young to be having a baby. God, all I could think of as I held her hand was that we should have listened to Jim, we should never have let her go through with it.”

He feels sick, like he’s got on a rollercoaster and can’t get off.

“Scott, you couldn’t have done it. You couldn’t have been with her when she went through that. It would have broken you. The baby… she was so, so tiny... And Tessa wanted to hold her, all she wanted to do was hold her baby…” His mom is crying now, crying like he’s never seen her before, so hard she can barely get her words out, “but then the baby was rushed away to London and Tessa never even got to say goodbye. Kate thought it would be better that way, Tessa was so weak, so drained by it all, but I… I’m not so sure.”

He’d known all about the baby being taken away to London, he hadn’t known that Tessa had wanted to hold her, he certainly hadn’t known that his mom thought something really bad might happen… She’d always refused to talk about it before. He needs to get out. “I, I’m going…” He shakes his head and goes outside. He puts his head against the cool wall and wills himself not to throw up.

He sinks down on the step to the side door. It’s like he’s being eaten from the inside out. Tessa… He put her through that. If he had just waited – waited to kiss her, waited to sleep with her, waited until they had a condom that would have worked. He thought he couldn’t hate himself any more, but he should have learned better by now.

He’s not sure how long he sits there for until someone joins him.

“You doing okay there?” Danny puts his arm on his back.

“Mom told me about… the day Tessa gave birth.” Maybe it hadn’t been that she’d never told him… maybe he’d never been brave enough to ask.

“Christ.”

They sit in silence. “I had one job you know? More than the skating, or competing well, and that was to take care of Tessa. I was meant to protect her and I didn’t. I let her down.” He gulps. “I let everyone down.”

“No, no you didn’t…”

“Yes, I did. I ruined everything and now Tessa barely speaks to me.”

“Scott… what Sheri said about you losing your only chance with Tess? That was bullshit, man. She’s still skating with you. She just needs time. Just… give her some space.”

He doesn’t think he deserves another chance with Tessa. He’d endangered everything they had worked for, endangered _her_. Space though, space he can give her. Maybe that was what she always wanted.

Danny sighs, “And this might not be what you want to hear but… space could be good for you too. Do some young stupid stuff… but be careful about it. The two of you have all the time in the world. And even if it never works out… what you had was special, but you can have that again with someone else.”

As if Scott could ever feel what he feels for Tessa for anyone else. “Whatever. I should… go talk to Mom.”

He goes back inside.

She’s still sitting at the kitchen table.

“Mom? I’m sorry about earlier... The flowerpot, all of it?”

She turns around and puts out her arms. It’s awkward hugging her like this, she’s so small, smaller still when she’s sitting down.

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have… I know how much you care about Tessa.”

“I should have been there for her. Even if she didn’t want me, I should have been around.”

“Oh honey… She… She would have liked to have you there. She knew why you couldn’t be, why we didn’t call you but… She kept – she kept saying she wanted you.”

 _Fuck_. He screws his eyes shut to stop any tears from falling. “I’m going to go to bed now.”

“Okay, Scotty, see you in the morning. And for the love of God have a shower before skating with Tessa tomorrow. You smell like a distillery.”

 

Danny drives him to the rink the next day. He got a text from Tessa when he was still at home that she was on the ice.

When he goes in she’s dressed in black, practising their twizzles for the free dance. She loves this music. When she notices him she smiles, and it’s a real one this time, or as real as they get nowadays. She’s so beautiful that he wants to look away but can’t.

She skates over to the boards to meet him. After he finishes tying his laces she takes his hand and they start stroking around the rink.

After a few laps he asks her, “What did you do yesterday?”

“Jordan dragged me to some party some friends of hers from university were having at the lake.” She’s looking down at the ice.

Maybe that’s why she seems in such a good mood. “That’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s good that you’re… going out and doing things, meeting new people.” Not tied down to him.

She ignores this, probably wants to just focus on skating. “What do you want to practise?”

They decide to work on the elements of _Valse Triste_ before doing a runthrough focusing on just the choreography. He doesn’t want to do too much when it’s just the two of them there.

When they skate it’s like nothing has changed, except that they’re stronger now. He’d worked so hard when she’d been away, he’d wanted to do it all so he’d be ready for when she came back. He knows he’s the best at the rink, he thinks he might even be the best in the world, and Tessa can match him, he knows she can. She’s already easily the best dancer. He could never get tired of watching her move, like liquid magic. She mesmerises him sometimes. They’re meant to be playing characters but to him if just feels like them, maybe in another life.

Marina had seemed apologetic when she first made them try out the ending pose. Tessa had been so stiff in his arms the first few times but now it feels natural. Too natural really with his hand in her hair and her lips so close to his. He loves her hair. Both of them are breathing so hard and, for a second, he thinks back on how she looked underneath or above him last summer. It’s probably a trick of the light, but, for a second, he imagines he sees something of the way she looked at him then in her eyes.

He rises up and she leaves his arms.

“That was great, Tess! What you’ve done… you’re amazing.”

Her cheeks are pink as she shakes her head a little. “I need to do so much more.”

“We’ll get there,” he says confidently. “The seniors won’t know what hit them.”

As they make their way off the ice and change from their boots to their shoes they talk about what they need to improve on.

She seems surprised when they get outside. “You didn’t drive over?”

“No… I had some moonshine last night.”

She grimaces. “That stuff even smells vile, I don’t know how you could drink it.”

He can’t exactly tell her he drank to forget last year.

She scuffs her sneaker against the asphalt. “My mom could drop you home if you wanted. We’re actually going to the mall now if you’re not busy. We could… I don’t know… do something.”

He’d taken her for ice-cream there last spring when they got home from Junior Worlds. She’d asked him if it was a date and he’d said of course it was, what did she expect after he’d bruised his lips kissing her so much outside her hotel room?

Space, he should give her space. “I, uh, thanks kiddo, but I should probably head back. I told my mom I’d help her with the gardening.”

“Oh right, sure.” She startles, “Gardening?!”

“Yeah, something happened with a flowerpot.”

“O-kay.”

Kate pulls up then. “I’ll see you when we get back to Canton, Scott.”

He sits on the kerb and watches them drive away before he calls Danny.

 

The next time he sees Tessa her hair is red.

For a stupid moment, he thinks this might help, like she won’t have quite the same effect on him now that she looks this little bit different.

He’s such a fool. They skate, and she’s still Tessa, and when they get into that ending pose he still loves the feel of her hair, even if it looks different between his fingers. It wouldn’t matter what colour her hair was, she’s still the girl who trusted him with everything, who still trusts him now on the ice, even after he let her down, even after her legs start to bother her more and more. She’s Tessa, and she was his once. But not now, and maybe not ever again.

 

_**September 2021** _

After their skaters have gone up to their rooms and their dinner plates have been cleared away Patrice puts down his coffee cup and says, “Scott, is everything okay?” He plans to brush him off but he continues, “You took that phone call with Tessa earlier and you were so quiet afterwards. You don’t have to tell me anything but… I’m here.”

It surprises him, but he realises he actually would like to talk to Patch about it. “Uh, could we go somewhere quieter maybe?”

“Sure.” They head out to the terrace that looks towards the slopes of the nearby ski resorts.

Scott has never actually told anyone about it all. Well, apart from his family that day he’d driven back to Ilderton after Tessa had arrived at his shared apartment at five am to tell him she was going to cancel her appointment at Planned Parenthood, and then two therapists years later, but he really doesn’t think that counts.

Tessa has been the one telling people. And in one way that surprises him seeing as she hadn’t talked about any of it to him for years, let alone other people, but in another it makes total sense. She had wanted to keep it quiet to protect their skating reputation, he had wanted to keep it quiet to protect her. He’d heard the way people talked about girls who got pregnant at school in Waterloo, he hadn’t wanted anyone saying those things about Tessa. In retrospect he may have gone overboard on the omerta aspect. Making his brothers basically swear a blood pact that they wouldn’t tell a soul had made sense at eighteen, but not so much sense when they’d got married and had families of their own. The one time he’s ever seen Hannah mad was that night in 2014 at the Canada Day barbecue when Danny had told her the reason why their mom had burst into tears on being told that Tessa had spent an hour in her kitchen with a baby in her arms.

Tessa had told him a while ago that it was okay with her if he wanted to tell Marie and Patch (she must have known he felt strange about the idea of telling them something that was so much hers), but it had never seemed like the right time. How did you tell two people who’d mentored you for so long that there was this huge part of your life you’d never mentioned? But now he feels like he can’t get through the next few days until he’s home without having someone with him who knows.

He’s not sure how to begin. “Um, do you remember during the 2005-2006 season that Tessa and I pulled out of the Junior Grand Prix Final and the rest of the season?”

Patrice frowns. “Yes, it was the beginning of Tessa’s problems with her legs, right?”

“It was… something else.”

“Well, there was some rumour I heard… that she had mononucleosis?”

He almost laughs, he hadn’t known for sure that the mono excuse had spread from the Moirs and Canton to the rest of the skating world. Someone had mentioned it at the Canada Day barbecue the past July, but they’d called it ‘the kissing disease’ and Tessa had left the backyard and gone into the house because she was laughing so hard. He’d followed her and, in between gulps of air, she managed to tell him that it was so funny because she mightn’t have had mono, but she’d got it from kissing all the same. He’d been so shocked for a second, they never joked about the pregnancy, but then he was laughing too until they were both barely standing up.

“That was something we told people so they wouldn’t know. The thing is…” He runs his hand through his hair. “Tessa and I started dating after Junior Worlds in ’05 and it was… serious. After we did the Junior Grand Prixs that fall, uh, we found out that Tessa was pregnant.”

He hears Patrice take a deep breath. He doesn’t look at him, just keeps staring at the mountains, just keeps talking. “We decided to place the baby for adoption, and she gave birth to a girl that February. It was a closed adoption, we didn’t want people to find out, and… we weren’t ready to be part of her life, it would have been too difficult. But this summer we decided that we were ready if… if that was ever something she wanted. And today we got a call. She wants to meet us.”

Vera had rung him just before dinner and told him all the things Tessa had. She said she was going to iron out details with the family and then get back to them. He told her she could just tell Tessa and that she would let him know. Tessa was the only one he wanted to hear all this from.

Patrice places a hand on his shoulder. “Scott… I… That must have been so difficult for you and Tessa. To… to experience all that and still skate together?”

“I think the skating together was the easiest part.” It had been almost all they had together for a while. “I don’t want you to think we didn’t tell you and Marie because we didn’t trust you… it wasn’t that…”

“Of course not,” he says gently. “This is something so… personal.”

“Yes. We thought about mentioning it to J-F but… it was too…” Sacred is the word that comes to mind. They’d discussed it after meeting everyone at b2ten, but they’d both felt that she wasn’t something they should bring into their skating life. They were opening up about everything to them, giving them access to every other aspect of their lives, and maybe they had wanted something that was theirs alone. Their way of keeping her safe.

He hadn’t wanted to share that with anyone other than family up until now. Kaitlyn had brought up the possibility of children one time, their children, his and hers, and he’d realised that he’d never considered starting a family with anyone other than Tessa. He hadn’t even ever felt like telling her that there was a child out there who was half him, half Tessa, a child he loved even if he’d never met her. That was a part of him that just didn’t belong to Kaitlyn, didn’t belong to anyone but Tess. He felt guilty that he’d let the relationship get to a point where that had been a natural thing for her to want to discuss. It hadn’t been fair to her, and neither had the way his heart had all but stopped beating when Tessa told him that the idea that teenage pregnancy ruined lives was bullshit, and that part of the reason her life was great was because she got to skate with him. It was a shitty way to treat someone who’d been there for him through some real low moments.

Patrice squeezes his shoulder before removing his hand. He rubs his temple. “I… I hope we never said or did anything that made you uncomfortable.”

There had been one moment. He’d been watching Tessa skate with Billie-Rose, both of them laughing, and Patrice had smiled at him and raised his eyebrows as if to say ‘Someday’. It had hurt so much because Scott had imagined that scenario so many times, Tessa and their daughter skating together, his girls out on the ice. He’d gotten better at not fantasising about those things by that stage but seeing Tessa and a little girl with dark hair had brought it all back.

His therapist had floored him by asking if he had considered that the reason he fantasised about what could have been if they’d decided to parent was that he didn’t feel like he’d been a part of that choice. And in a lot of ways he hadn’t, Tessa had just come to him with a reading list about adoption a mile long that she’d printed off at some ungodly hour of the night. But he’d been part of the adoption process, he’d read all the files of prospective parents, kept notes on them even. And they were right not to parent. They hadn’t been ready.

The idea had stuck with him all the same until a week later when Tessa knocked on the door to his condo after coming home from some holiday party the Desautels Faculty of Management had thrown. She’d been wearing this hairband with reindeer antlers and instead of kissing her like he wanted to he’d gone for the equally nuclear option of blurting out what his therapist had said. She’d blinked twice, took off her antlers, walked past him into the kitchen, made coffee, and sat down and talked it through. Somehow, he loved her more in that moment than he ever had before.

It sounds like Patrice is fretting now. “I’m sorry if I ever pushed the idea of you and Tessa being together off-ice… if I had known…”

“Don’t worry. It’s fine. And… I think we might be getting there.” He may as well get everything off his chest now he’s started.

A smile spreads across Patch’s face.

It had taken Scott a while to put it together. Tessa kept announcing these random things in this very polite, overly formal tone. Except they weren’t random – it was stuff like “I’ve started with a new therapist. I think I’m making a lot of progress,” or “I’m not seeing anyone. Or trying to see anyone,” or inviting him to a New Year’s party Jordan might be throwing a solid four months in advance. He doesn’t think they’ve ever spent New Year’s together. She’d even said that she thought her resolution might be to start afresh. All of it together made it seem like she was trying to tell him that she was working towards something.

It had taken him a long, long time to understand that with Tessa a lack of emotion sometimes meant that she was feeling too much. He’s never been able to forget how she sounded that late September morning when she said “Scott, I’m very sorry, but I don’t think I can have the abortion” – so polite and stilted, like she was ringing up her dentist to cancel a filling. He knows that ruminating on it won’t change anything, but God, if he’d even told her that she had nothing to be sorry for instead of just saying that she should do what she needed he thinks he could have saved them some problems at least. He had just wanted what was best for her.

“Though I guess meeting her… that might complicate things a little.” Scott can wait.

“How do you feel about meeting her? I, uh, I think I almost forgot about that.”

He can’t blame him. It must have been hard to keep paying attention after the secret baby and adoption bombshell.

“I feel… I don’t know. Nervous?” It’s still so surreal.

Patch’s eyes widen.

Scott laughs, “Did you just think about how you’re going to have to tell Marie this?”

He nods. “Or is that something you’d prefer to do? It’s your life, yours and Tessa’s.”

Scott remembers Tessa telling him about how she’d ended up sharing the story with Andrew right after she told Kaitlyn. “And I said to her, ‘Kait, it’s fine, you’re marrying him, you shouldn’t keep that from him’ but she felt so awful about the idea that I just ended up telling him myself. He kept patting my hand. It was sweet I guess.”

She had been visiting him in the middle of July and they were out for a run in the park. It was really bad but as she was relating all this he couldn’t help staring at how her ponytail was stuck to her neck, trying desperately to ignore the errant memories of the taste of sweat on her skin.

He really needs to pay attention to Patrice. “You can tell her. Oh, is it okay if I take a few days off next week? I’m going to fly to Toronto after the competition.”

“Of course! Do you want to go earlier? I should have asked you, I’m…”

“It’s fine. I talked it over with Tessa and she thinks I should stay here for Sabine and Luc.” His phone vibrates in his pocket. When he finds out who’s calling he motions to Patrice and goes over to the edge of the terrace.

“Tess, how are you?”

She sounds a little breathless. “I was just talking to Vera again. Are you free?”

“I’m talking to Patch but…”

“Just talking or…”

“I told him.”

“Oh, Scott, I’m so glad.” She sounds so relieved; his mom had said she seemed more worried about him than anything else. “How did it feel?”

“It was… good I guess. I’ll head up to my room and call you back so we can talk, okay?”

“Great.” Her voice gets far away like she’s put her phone down, “Yes, Mom, I’ll let him know.” She whispers, “I’m going to go hide in my room too in case Mom takes the phone off me to talk to you.”

He laughs, “I’ll speak to you in a few minutes.”

He turns to find Patrice already standing up. His former coach wraps him into a huge hug. “Tell Tessa I send my love.”

He heads up to his room and it hits him when he goes through the door how much has changed since he left this morning.

They’re really going to meet her, to learn all the things they’ve ever wondered.

He kicks off his shoes and lays down on the bed, pressing the speed dial that connects him with Tessa.

“Her name is Katie, Scott,” she says the second she picks up. Her voice is so full of wonder.

“Katie. Ka-tie,” he repeats, trying to get used to the sound. He smiles, “Katherine. They kept the name you gave her.”

“Yes,” Tessa sounds like she’s in between laughter and tears. He wishes he was there with her, wishes he had her in his arms. “I could never call her that in my head, you know? I thought they might have kept it… but maybe they had their own name picked out? And now we know.”

“We know,” he echoes. He’d never called her, Katie, anything in his head either. A name was both everything and nothing.

“I used to… Sometimes… I’d go read through the online results from age-level skating competitions and wonder if I was seeing her name. One time I even watched some grainy stream of juveniles at Ontario Sectionals. I just kept thinking that she had Moir blood, maybe she had some atavistic need to skate?” She whispers all this and then says, “I’ve never said that out loud before. It seemed so… desperate.”

“No, you just… I understand.”

“Well, as it turns out, she was definitely never at any of those competitions because she grew up in the U.K. They moved when she was little for her dad’s work and she and her mom just moved back to Toronto this summer after they divorced.”

She really had been as far away as she felt all this time. “Is she going to have a British accent?!”

Tessa laughs. “I guess? Or maybe a mix of Canadian and British? We’re going to find out soon. Vera says that she and her mom can meet us Monday evening after she finishes school. You’re due to fly in that afternoon so we could meet them then, or arrange something for later?”

He could meet her in four days. “No, Monday is good. I don’t… We’ve waited long enough, right?”

“Yeah.” She’s quiet for a minute. “Oh! The thing my mom wants to tell you is that there’s this over the counter brand of sleeping pills in France she wants me to send you the name of. She swears by them, and she thinks you should get them and take one for when you’re flying. She’s really fussing over you.”

“Tell her thank you, and I will.” He’s not entirely sure when Kate started treating him like her fifth child again, maybe sometime before PyeongChang, but it means a lot.

“I think she’s more worried about you than me because I’m here and she can do stuff for me. I swear I thought she was going to snatch the phone off me when I called you a few minutes ago, I can’t believe I’m here lying on my bed talking to you and hiding from her like it’s 2005 or something.”

His mouth goes dry. The last time he was on Tessa’s bed in her room in London was a hot August day that year. He’d driven her back from Canton and she’d invited him upstairs saying no one would be home for another hour at least. They’d made out and she wanted to take things further but she had no condoms there and he had used that solitary one in his wallet on Canada Day. She’d just started on the pill and they hadn’t wanted to take any chances (the irony of ironies being that she was already pregnant by then anyway thanks to that wallet condom, they just didn’t know it) so he’d gone down on her on her daisy print bedsheets. He’d avoided her room when he’d stayed there over the summer after Kate’s first chemo sessions in case he did something idiotic like ask her if she wanted to revisit that experience.

“I’m lying on my bed too.” These are the words that come out of his mouth. What the fuck??? They’re having a conversation about meeting the daughter they placed for adoption and his stupid motor mouth is acting like it wants to initiate _phone sex_???

“Oh.” He’s so pathetic that his mind tricks him into thinking her voice is breathier now. “It must be late there. Do you want to go to sleep?”

“No,” he says quickly. “I want to keep talking to you.”

“Okay.” He can hear the smile on her face. “Could we just talk about normal things for a while, like this was any other day? I could do with a little normal.”

He starts to tell her all about practice, and how Luc had pushed some Bulgarian kid who had almost crashed into Sabine, and how Chloe and Jason were definitely not-so-secretly dating. He calls her every night, or she calls him, and they talk about their days, about everything really. It’s not as good as when he saw her every day in Montréal, but it will do for now. He hadn’t realised quite how important these phone calls were to both of them until one of his hockey buddies had finagled him into joining him on a double date after practice one night. Scott had left at eleven to go home and ring Tessa and she’d sounded so relieved, so ridiculously happy when she answered, like it’s what she’d been waiting for all day.

Now he can’t quite believe that it had taken her sobbing telling him how much she wanted, _needed_ , to skate with him, to spend time with him, on the freaking Great Wall of China for him to figure out that having an escape route from him had never been a part of the reason she chose adoption. Tessa had been showing him that she was in it for the long haul for as long as he’d known her. She came back from the National Ballet, she came back from having the baby, she came back from surgery (twice). She always came back to him.

And in a few days he will get to come back to her.

 

He’s staring at the board waiting for his gate to be announced when he hears his name being called. He turns to find Sabine. “I didn’t think you guys were heading to the airport so early, where are the others?”

“Patrice said that he thought you might get lonely, but he’s stuck at security with Luc because he set the…” she waves her hand about, “scanner off because he didn’t take his medal out of his pocket.”

Scott laughs and Sabine gives him a look, “He is an idiot.”

“He’s a good partner though,” Scott reminds her.

She makes a face to say that this is obvious.

“And where are Chloe and Jason?”

“They got distracted by something in duty free, but I thought I should come find you. You are preoccupied these past few days.”

Sabine’s perceptiveness is incredibly useful when the language barrier proves a struggle for the three of them, but Scott could do without his sixteen year old student being able to read his mood so well right now.

“It didn’t affect your coaching,” she assures him, “I just noticed it.”

“Thanks, Sabine.” She’s his favourite and he thinks that’s okay as long as he doesn’t show it. How can she not be when she became an ice dancer after seeing Tessa and him win Worlds in her hometown in 2012? She’d told him that when he’d been trying to comfort her when she was so homesick after first moving to Montréal last year. It wasn’t his place to judge people’s parenting decisions but he didn’t get how anyone could agree to let their fifteen year old move across the world, no matter how talented they were or how much they wanted it.

“Ah look, there is your gate number! When did you decide to go to Toronto?”

His gate is only a two-minute walk away so he figures he can stay and chat. “After I got here, something, uh, came up.”

“You miss Tessa,” Sabine states simply.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Even Gabriella has mentioned it.” He thinks she’s saying about five different things with the way she’s raising her eyebrows right now.

It would probably be unprofessional if he laughed at that. “I should be back on Wednesday so I won’t be gone too long.” He and Tessa thought he should take a day afterwards to decompress.

Sabine looks at him gravely, “Take as much time as you need.” She can be such an old woman sometimes.

Luc bounds up to them with Patch on his heels.

“I heard you set off the scanner with your medal,” Scott grins.

Luc proudly presents the silver medal from his pocket. “I never want to put it away!”

Sabine rolls her eyes at him but there’s a lot of fondness there. It surprises Scott sometimes when he remembers they’ve only been skating together for four years. They’d been so excited with their first Junior Grand Prix medal, especially as their families had been able to travel to Courchevel to see them compete.

“Where are Chloe and Jason?” Patrice asks.

“Probably kissing somewhere,” Luc snickers. Sabine hits his arm.

“I think they’re trying to keep that on the down-low, buddy,” Scott reminds him.

Sabine clicks her tongue. “They are very young to try and… balance a romantic relationship with their skating.” They’re two and four years older than she is respectively.

“Why don’t you two go and find them?” Patrice suggests.

They both throw their arms around Scott and say goodbye. Sabine lingers after and says, “Tell Tessa thank you again for all her messages this weekend, and that we miss her. And…” she pauses, like for once she’s unsure of what she’s going to say, “I hope you come back smiling.”

She must think he’s on some mission to confess his love to Tessa.

Patrice shakes his head fondly after Sabine waves goodbye. He places one of his hands on each of Scott’s shoulders. “I wish I had something wise to tell you before you go.”

He laughs, “Tessa and I have been wondering what vitamins b2ten would give us for this.”

“This is very clichéd but… just be yourself. If you and Tessa are yourselves… she will know you. And while I don’t know what it would be like to be in that situation I think that might be what she wants. And if she knows you…” he smiles, “good things will happen.”

Scott finds himself getting choked up. He hugs Patch and thanks him for everything.

His flight starts boarding soon after and he’s on his way.

 

He wakes up a few minutes before the plane lands at Pearson and thinks that Kate has really excellent taste in sleeping pills.

He sees Tessa as soon as he gets to arrivals. She has her hair up and is wearing leggings and an oversized adidas hoodie, she must have been skating. He drinks her in for a second and then she looks up and sees him too. Her eyes really do light up and they make their way towards each other as fast as they can without drawing too much attention to themselves.

They burrow into one another, and his face just happens to nestle itself into the crook of her neck. “You’ve gone back to the strawberry shampoo.” She had been using a more floral scent recently, it had been pretty, but he likes this one better.

She lets out a little laugh and he can feel the vibrations on his lips. “I think I wanted something comforting.”

They disentangle themselves and say at the same time, “How are you feeling?”

“You first,” he prompts.

“Better now you’re here.” She looks tired.

“Me too.” He hugs her again, and then puts his arm around her shoulder as they start to walk out.

“I feel like I should be carrying your luggage like you do for me when I come visit.”

He grins. “That’s very chivalrous of you, but I think I’ll manage.”

“How was the flight?”

“I slept through all of it, your mom was right about those pills. I bought her as many as they’d legally allow me to in the pharmacy.”

“You’re really making a play to be the favourite child here, Scott. None of us have ever brought her back a barely legal amount of drugs.”

They make it to her car quickly. After he puts his suitcase in the trunk he joins her in the front seat. “Were you skating at the Cricket Club?”

She smiles at him and then starts the car. “Yeah, I thought it might clear my head.”

“Did it?”

“A little? It’s not the same when I’m by myself. I booked us some ice time tomorrow if we want it.”

“I’d like that.” He has no clue how he will feel tomorrow, after, but skating has always helped.

“I was talking to Tracy Wilson when I was there,” the overly formal tone is in full force if she’s referring to Tracy whom they’ve known forever by her full name, “and she was saying that they’ve been thinking of expanding their ice dance programme. They want someone to lead it next season.” She taps her fingers on the steering wheel. “And… I know you love it at Gadbois, and Marie and Patch have been so good to you, but… if you wanted to be closer to home…”

He loves her so much. “I’d like to come home.”

“To, uh, Ilderton?” she asks in her fake-casual tone.

“Nah, I think Toronto would work.”

She looks over at him then, and for all the calmness in her voice her eyes are wildfire. “I’d like that, having you here.”

He puts his hand on her leg and rests it there for the remainder of the journey.

When they get in the door to her apartment she asks him does he need anything, food, water, a shower?

“I don’t think I could eat,” he says sitting down on her white couch.

She joins him. “I know. There’s about a million butterflies in my stomach. I just… This isn’t something you can prepare for. I’ve read all those pieces Vera recommended but… those are other people. They’re not us and they’re not her.”

He draws her close to him and she rests her head on his chest. They stay like that for a while until she says, “I don’t know how to tell her I love her without it being too much. I… I’ve thought about her every single day, but I can’t tell her that. What if it makes her feel guilty that she hasn’t thought about me? Because I don’t want her, _Katie_ , to have thought about us all the time.”

He leans down his head down and kisses her hair. “You’ll show her you love her, Tess. She’ll understand.” He hopes that this meeting is everything Tessa wants it to be.

“You can’t know that for sure though,” she murmurs, rubbing her arm back and forth over her curled up legs.

She’s right. “I’m sorry, I can’t. But… I know that we can try to show her we love her, that’s all we can do.”

“Thank you,” she whispers.

They sit like that for a while longer until she gets up. “We should probably start getting ready.”

“Yeah, I think I will have that shower.” His muscles are sore from the flight.

“Sure, there are towels for you in the spare room, and the clothes we picked out are on the bed.”

She’d rung him on Saturday when she was out shopping with her sister. She’d said she felt silly, that it was superficial worrying so much about what they were going to wear and he told her it wasn’t, and anyway, he didn’t have the right clothes with him so she needed to get him something. Jordan had sent him photos of what she was looking at while he’d told her all about Sabine and Luc’s free dance and the medal ceremony.

The shower doesn’t relax him like he expected it would. If anything, he feels more and more anxious with the water beating down on him. There are a lot of ways this could go wrong – he could blurt out something stupid, she might ask a question they can’t answer, she might hate them. He reminds himself that there are also a lot of ways it could go right, or, most likely, something in between. He thinks being away from Tessa isn’t helping him, and the thought that this is probably the first time he’s ever imagined her joining him in the shower for reasons that are purely based on comfort distracts him.

He’s still antsy when he’s getting dressed, and the buttons on the cuff of his shirt just will not close. “Tess? Can you help me? I can’t do up the cuffs on this shirt.”

“Sure, just give me a second,” she calls back from her room. “I’m doing up my zipper.”

Not the time to think about Tessa getting changed. He sits down on the bed. She comes in on stockinged feet wearing a navy dress that falls just above her knees. She hasn’t done her make-up yet and she looks so young like this.

She stands in between his legs and picks up his right arm, examining the buttons. “These are very small, I should have thought of that when I was buying it.” She frowns as she does up the first one but does the rest in no time. She does the same to his other sleeve and then puts her hand to his face, lifting it up so that he’s looking at her. “What is it, Scott?” she asks gently.

He closes his eyes and she strokes her thumb across his cheek. “What if she asks why I didn’t go to see her?”

She wraps her arms around him. “I think you should just tell her the truth.”

“That it was too hard?”

“Yes, it doesn’t mean that you didn’t care, you just cared so, so much.”

“Not the whole truth though, we can’t tell her that,” he whispers.

“No,” she replies, equally as softly, “especially not with her mom there.”

Over the summer, when he was staying with her at Kate’s, they’d spoken about not going to see the baby in the hospital in London. He told her why he couldn’t go in and Tessa had admitted she couldn’t see her again either because she didn’t know how she would have been able to let her go. “If I had seen her with you… I was afraid I wouldn’t able to go through with it, even knowing all the reasons we had, all the good reasons, the right reasons. And… we had made a commitment. We had to be loyal to that.”

She surprises him by sitting down on his lap. He automatically puts his arm around her waist. She rests her forehead against his and says, “It’s going to be okay, we have each other. No matter what, remember?”

“No matter what.”

She kisses his cheek and gets up. “I should go do my make-up.” She must see his face fall because she says, “Come sit with me.”

He puts on his shoes and follows her to her room. He hasn’t been in it before. The bedspread and curtains are all white, but there’s colour in the flowers on her vanity table and in the photos dotted around the room. There’s one of the two of them from right after Junior Worlds in 2005, just when they’d started dating – he’s laughing and she’s smiling at him like he’s the best thing she’s ever seen.

“I just put that one up.” His staring was probably obvious. “I found it when I was looking through photos to bring to show Katie and her mom. I couldn’t look at it for years, but I could never throw it away.” He squeezes her shoulder.

He sits on her bed and watches her. He asks what products she’s using and she laughs. It’s quiet, but she laughs. He remembers watching her doing her make-up one time before they went to a party back when they were dating and she’d asked him was this not really boring for him? But it hadn’t been, he’d just liked being with her. He still likes just being with her.

She’s finished quickly and she goes around the apartment getting all the stuff she needs. He follows her like a puppy but she doesn’t seem to mind, just narrates everything she’s doing as if she’s afraid she’s going to leave something behind.

They walk to the office block where they’re meeting them, it’s just ten minutes from Tessa’s apartment. Vera said she liked to have meetings they facilitated in a different space to the adoption agency offices in case it brought back upsetting memories for anyone, and she didn’t want them getting recognised either.

Tessa babbles a bit, talking about the Leafs’ prospects, trying to keep them both calm, but as they get closer she gets quieter.

They get in the elevator and she starts tapping her foot. He takes her hand in his and she gives him a smile but it’s like he can feel the nerves radiating out of her. She’s biting her lip and her foot just keeps tapping.

The elevator stops and they get off. She’s shaking but when he asks her if she’s okay she tells him yes. They start to follow the sign for the room number Vera told them when Tessa stops. She drops his hand and turns around to face him.

The look in her eyes is exactly like when she told him she wanted to go back to skating. “Scott… I’m so sorry… I know this really is not the time but…”

She closes her eyes and he watches her take a deep breath. “You asked me in 2014 would I ever be ready for us, and I wasn’t ready then, I don’t think either of us were. But I’m ready now.”

This is it. It’s really happening. It’s like he can’t breathe or see his surroundings, all he can focus on is Tessa.

She opens her eyes and they’re full of tears. “I love you, and I want to be with you. And I understand if that’s not what you want, or if you’re not ready for this yet, but I just really need you to know how I feel. And maybe this is selfish telling you now… I thought I should wait, but… I want you to know before we go in there. I want you to know that no matter what happens in that room that I will want to be with you. I need you to know that.” She takes another breath, “The pregnancy, the adoption, Katie… that’s a huge part of who we are, but it’s not all of it, all of us. I love what we have now, but I want more, I want it all with you. I don’t want to just call you every night, I want to be with you every night. And I know it won’t be easy but I want to work at it with you, I’m ready to work at it with you.” She laughs this teary little laugh, “I’m so, so ready.”

He hears a door open and close and someone walking towards them. He grabs Tessa’s hand and squeezes it hard before turning around to see Vera.

He doesn’t know how he can think of anything other than Tessa right now, but he’s surprised to see how old Vera looks. He’d been picturing her the exact same way she’d looked all those years ago in his head and that seems so stupid of him now. “It’s so good to see you two in person again. Katie and her mom are in the room now if you’re ready?”

He clears his throat, “Could we have a minute please? I just… I need to say something to Tessa.”

“Of course! Take all the time you need, I don’t want to rush anything. I’ll just wait down the hall.” She smiles and after walking away a little turns back around, “I’d just like to say before you go in… maybe prepare yourselves, she looks…” Vera shakes her head a bit, “she looks so like you did back then.”

Tessa puts a hand to her mouth. Vera keeps walking towards the door.

He crushes Tessa to him and whispers into her ear, “Yes, Tessa, _yes_.” She sinks into him then. “I love you, I want to be with you, I’m ready for this.” He can’t say anything coherent, just keeps murmuring into her ear trying to somehow get his message across, her skin so warm and soft against his lips. He feels like he’s flying, like all of his far-off, long-held dreams are here now – concrete and technicolour and Tessa. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, you are. I love you so fucking much. No matter what happens, okay? You and me, always.”

“Always,” she repeats.

He lets go of her and she’s smiling, she wipes her eyes but her smile is so bright that it sets his heart on fire. He kisses her forehead and takes her hand and they go into the room together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has to end here for Narrative Reasons, not make you wait ones, I promise! (though there will be a wait)
> 
> Please feel free to yell at me in the comments, or on tumblr.com


	4. 'couldn't drag me away'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is 15k?! What is this fic doing to me?! 
> 
> Thank you to M, my expert on Canadian confectionery. Thank you to peacefulboo and toomucherin who have been so kind and patient with my medical questions, anything I got wrong is 100% my fault. Thank you to do_not_confess without whom this fic would never have been written, she has gone above and beyond in editing and helping me work things out, and has made my return to writing such a lovely experience.

_**February 2006** _

_Before_

Tessa hadn’t expected to like anything about being pregnant. And there are a lot of things she really does not like – the back pain, the constant bathroom breaks, being _fat_ , but when she feels the baby move it’s like things almost make sense.

She _loves_ feeling her move. At first it had been so delicate, but now she’s so strong, and that makes Tessa feel strong too. The first time she felt anything had been when she was sitting at the kitchen table in the cottage trying to work on her calculus problems. She’d been crying, she can’t remember why (she spent most of her time crying before the baby started moving though), and she’d felt this flutter inside her – like bubbles in a backyard on a summer’s day. She thinks that maybe she and Scott had blown bubbles together running around his house when they were little. Somehow it had felt like this, feeling her move, was what she’d been waiting for, the sign she’d so wanted, since she’d decided in the middle of that night in September to continue with the pregnancy. It was like the baby was telling her that she loved her back.

Tessa’s on her own in the cottage (like most days) waiting for her mom to come back from picking up Jordan for spring break. It’s nice that she’s coming to stay with them but Tessa has no idea what they’re actually going to do. It’s not like she can go anywhere, definitely not now when even the old shirts of her dad’s her mom gave her don’t hide the bump. She doesn’t know what they can talk about, Jordan feels so far away from her now. She thinks she’s so adult now that she’s a sophomore and has been living away from home for two years, as if that’s some big deal. Tessa moved away from home at thirteen. Jordan has no idea what it means to be grown up, to have to make huge decisions that affect the lives of everyone around you.

No one in her family seems to know what to do with her. Christmas had been so uncomfortable, they’d snuck her back to London in the dead of night, her baby bump a bomb concealed under her puffy coat. Her brothers had tiptoed around her like they were worried she might explode with one wrong step, one wrong word. Jordan had just chattered about inane things like school and clothes (as if she could wear anything that made her look pretty in her condition!). Her dad could barely look at her, still can’t anytime he comes to visit. Her mom had tried her best, but it had been even more awkward than it was between them at the cottage with everyone else there too. Her nana was the only one who had treated her the same, or if not the same then she’d at least still made it clear she loved her just as much as she had before. She’d held her hand and watched Audrey Hepburn films with her.

Tessa quite likes being on her own now, this way she can talk to the baby out loud. She can’t do that when her mom’s around, she looks so sad and frightened when she even sees her touch her stomach. She thinks she must be afraid that she’s going to change her mind and decide to parent. That has to be the reason why she doesn’t want her to talk to Scott too much, or for him to spend much time here. And maybe she has a point becomes sometimes Tessa thinks she might have… wondered about that, if Scott had shown any interest that is. He’d been like a zombie those first few days after they found out, and it had made her want to shake him. He was usually so direct, and outgoing, and… _present_ , he’d been present for all the important parts of her life up until that point, maybe was the most important part of her life, but when she needed him most it was like only a shell of him remained. He’d looked so young to her that day as they stared at the tests, like she was the older one now. It was probably for the best though. If Scott had wanted to be a dad she doesn’t know how she would have said no to him, and she would have had to say no, for both their sakes. Her very first reaction when they’d seen the lines on those pregnancy tests was that she wasn’t ready, and that has to mean something. She isn’t ready to be a mom, she can’t give the baby the life she deserves no matter how much she loves her. And… she has dreams that aren’t compatible with teenage parenthood, dreams of skating and competing, dreams of gold.

Now he comes to visit at weekends and they just talk about the adoption. He’d taken it so seriously, he even had a notebook with his thoughts on each set of prospective parents so she knows he must care about the baby in some way. The family they’d chosen for her had been the one with the most pros and least cons on his list (and if Tessa had been happy about that because she had a feeling when reading about them the first time no one had to know but her). He sits far away from her now, like he’s afraid to touch her, and it’s not as if she blames him. She’s not the girl he’d introduced as his girlfriend at the Moir Canada Day barbecue anymore – that girl had been skinny and carefree, she’s not the girl he’d said was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, the one he’d kissed, had touched, for hours. She’s not his girlfriend anymore but she can’t pinpoint when exactly that happened.

It’s hard for her to be close to him when he doesn’t want her because she wants him so much. She feels so… _horny_ (it’s such a gross word), like all she wants is his hands on her, his mouth on her, him inside her. She wonders if it would feel different, which position would work best. She wants to lose herself in him again and never have to be found, live in some world where it’s just them (and the baby, sometimes the baby is there too). The fact that her sense of smell is heightened really doesn’t help matters when he’s around. The scent of his drugstore deodorant now drives her absolutely crazy, makes her think of watching him get dressed and him pausing to kiss her after he put on each piece of clothing like he was trying to reassure himself that she wasn’t going to disappear (she supposes she has disappeared now). One time (and the memory of this makes her so embarrassed) she hadn’t been able to handle it, him being so close and so far away, and she’d gone into the bathroom and touched herself, imagining it was his fingers inside her. It took longer to thoroughly wash her hands than it had to get herself off.

‘Everywhere’ starts playing and the baby kicks so hard. “You love that one, don’t you, kiddo?” she asks, rubbing her belly.

She hadn’t intended to call the baby the same nickname Scott called her, there was probably something weird about that, but it had been the only one to stick. Everything else sounded kind of silly or forced, kiddo just fit. He hadn’t called her that for so long anyway, not since before they started sleeping together.

She’s listening to a playlist she put together, she had intended it to be just her music but Scott has seeped in somehow with some Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Tragically Hip, even some Johnny Cash. The baby loves music, Tessa thinks she might be a dancer, or maybe she just takes after Scott.

She really should be working on her birth plan. Vera says she should make it as soon as possible so that she has time to prepare herself, and in case she goes into labour early. She really likes Vera, she doesn’t talk to her like a kid and she listens to her and Scott. She thinks she saw a twinkle in her eye when they told her the family they’d decided on, like she approved. Tessa knows she won’t be able to spend a lot of time with the baby, she would find that too difficult, but she wants a little time with her. Maybe an hour where it’s just the two of them, so she can hold her in her arms after carrying her under her heart for so long. Maybe Scott could be there too, if he wanted.

She hears her mom’s car and turns off the music. She considers getting up and meeting them at the door, but the idea of waddling over there only to have to waddle back to the couch exhausts her.

“Tessa!” Jordan calls. “Where are you?”

“In the living room,” she answers back.

Jordan comes rushing in and then stops all of a sudden when she sees her, eyes widening.

“Am I that fat?!”

“No, Tess, not at all. You’re just… really pregnant now.”

She laughs, “I think I’ve been pregnant for a while now.”

Jordan sits down beside her and hugs her close. “I’ve missed you.”

Her throat hurts all of a sudden, “I missed you too.”

“Would it be weird if I told you that your stomach doesn’t feel like I thought it would?”

“I don’t know what way I expected it to feel,” she admits.

It had seemed to stay flat for so long until pop! baby bump. Sometimes when she touches it Tessa can feel her little feet kicking against her hand and it’s almost like they’re touching skin on skin.

She lets go of her sister.

“Could I… feel it when she moves?” Jordan asks.

She’s surprised, the only person who’s ever asked is Alma, everyone else seems to want to pretend there’s not a baby in there. “Not when Mom might come in, I think it would upset her,” she whispers quickly.

“Jordan!” their mom calls. “When I said I’d take in your bag for you I thought you might at least wait to open the door for me!”

“Sorry Mom! Had to go see my sister!” She grins at her and Tessa thinks that maybe this visit will go well after all.

Their mom is still grumbling when she comes into the living room but she smiles when she sees them. “How are you feeling, Tessa? Did you need to take the antacids again?”

“No, I’ve been fine all day.” This is what the majority of their conversations amount to now - how is her back, how are her legs, did she have any Braxton Hicks? Sometimes she wishes she hadn’t told her mom to go back to work in London, but then she thinks that if she were at the cottage with her all the time the fussing would drive her insane. It’s like Tessa’s all pregnant body to her now, not her daughter.

“That’s good. I’ll get dinner started now. You two sit and chat.”

Tessa asks Jordan about her midterms and does her best to listen attentively, but she’s a little distracted by the baby dancing. They all have dinner together and then watch a movie and it’s nice until her back really starts aching and she can’t get comfortable anymore.

She says goodnight and hauls herself up off the couch and through her night time rituals (which now include rubbing a lot of oil on her stomach to prevent stretch marks, it seems to be working but her doctor says that some women just don’t get them. She doesn’t want to take any chances.)

She’s just getting into bed when Jordan comes in. “Oh, I thought you were going to sleep in the spare room.” She won’t be able to read _Goodnight Moon_ to the baby now. She’d found it one day when she got tired of doing schoolwork and started looking through cupboards. The baby likes it, Tessa can tell.

“Why wouldn’t I sleep here? I’ve always slept here.” It’s true, they used to be so excited to stay up talking all night in their twin beds. “Is the baby moving?”

“Yes, do you want to feel?” She seems extra active, she’s probably wondering why she hasn’t got her bedtime story yet.

She raises herself up and Jordan comes to sit next to her, placing her hands on her belly. Tessa wonders if the baby is excited to say hi to someone new. “It’s so… weird.”

Tessa probably shouldn’t be annoyed by this, it is weird, it’s incredibly weird, but it’s also amazing? She is growing a human being inside of her and there’s something… magical about that, no matter how much pain it’s caused her. She knows it’s been inconvenient and messy and difficult, but she wishes that someone in her family would acknowledge that it’s also special.

“I’d like to lie down again,” she tells her.

Jordan gets changed and turns off the light. After a minute or two she says, “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

She doesn’t need to ask what she’s talking about. “No. That’s… not an option.”

They lie there in the dark for a while until Jordan whispers, “Tess, why didn’t you have the abortion?”

Her hands tighten around her stomach. “Jordan! She can hear you.”

“Mom? She’s in her room.”

“No! The baby.”

“Yeah, but it’s just a sound… she doesn’t understand the concept.”

And yes, that’s true (Tessa is sure she knows a hell of a lot more about infant development than Jordan does), but still… It doesn’t feel right to talk about it with her right there. “I’m giving birth in five weeks or less, I don’t think there’s any point in going over it now.”

“I just… I want to understand.”

Sometimes Tessa isn’t quite sure she understands why she made that choice herself. She’s always made sensible decisions, rational ones, based on reason not emotion. An abortion was surely the sensible and rational choice when she was a sixteen year old athlete who was aiming to win a Junior World Championship and go the Olympic Games, when she had a partner who needed her to achieve those things himself. But her partner was Scott, and she loved Scott, she loved him more than she could comprehend, and when she’d been lying there that night before her mom was due to drive her to Ann Arbor for the procedure all she could think of was that what was inside her was proof of that. It… the baby, was half Scott, she (somehow Tessa had always known she was a girl) could have his eyes, his smile, and when Tessa really thought about that, had let herself _feel_ it, she knew that she wasn’t ready to let go, not just yet.

Maybe her father was right, maybe she was being sixteen and silly and sentimental, but it’s her choice and she has made it. She’d gone into her mom’s room to tell her after she’d spent hours looking up information on adoption online, she’d been crying so hard, she was convinced her mom would try to talk her out of it, but instead she’d just held her and said it was okay, that everything would be okay. The next day, after she told Scott, they’d driven back home and her mom had told everyone about the pregnancy while Tessa curled up in her room, tracing the daisies on her bedspread. The rest of her family had tried to convince her to change her mind, but her mom had told them it was her decision to make. And she doesn’t think she should have to justify it to Jordan now.

“Maybe when you love someone like I love Scott you’ll understand,” she says, and even she can hear the haughtiness.

She hears a sharp intake of breath, and then Jordan replies, “Okay, but how does he feel about you? It’s not like he’s been around much.”

“He’s been around more than you have,” the words come out quick and hot. “Mom doesn’t want him here, he’s not comfortable.” A lot of the time she worries that he doesn’t love her anymore, but then she’ll remember how he still looks at her with so much softness in his eyes. She thinks that maybe the idea that he could still love her is scarier than the idea that he might have stopped.

Jordan’s voice is shallow now, like she’s trying not to cry. The kind part of Tessa feels guilty, the other part does not. “But what happens next? Have you thought about what it will be like for the two of you after?”

Tessa tries to think about after, but it hurts. So, she doesn’t. Maybe if Scott doesn’t think she ruined his life, maybe if he hasn’t found someone else, maybe if he could want her again… in a few months maybe she might be ready for something.

“Can we just go to sleep? I’m so tired.”

“Yeah.” Jordan sniffles, “Tessa, I’m really sorry.”

She doesn’t want to start crying. “I’m sorry, too.”

She doesn’t sleep much.

 

It’s awkward between them the next morning and she’s glad Jordan and her mom are going to the mall together. Alma is coming over to watch the compulsory dances from Turin with her. Her mom is worried watching the Olympics might upset her. Tessa thinks it might be hard, but she misses skating almost as much as she misses Scott and it’s not like she can get on the ice right now. She wants to support the people who’ve been so kind to her too, Marie-France Dubreuil had sent her a lovely email after Canadian Nationals, and Tanith has been messaging her asking how she is and telling her news from Canton every few days for months now.

Apparently Scott is training like a madman. She knows Tanith is telling her this to help, but it only makes her anxious. He’s already better than she is and she’s just been sitting around getting fat for five months while he’s working harder than ever. The difference between them will be even more noticeable when she gets back. She’d half-suggested that she’d understand if he wanted to get a new partner right after she moved up to the cottage, but he’d acted like this was the most horrific idea he’d ever heard, had been offended that she’d even mentioned it. She still thinks of that sometimes when she gets especially sad.

Alma arrives after she’s taken the vitamins her mom leaves out for her each morning. She goes to the door to greet her.

Alma wraps her into her arms. “Tessa, honey, you look tired. Is it hard to sleep with her getting so big?” She asks for permission with her eyes and then rubs her belly. “I know if she’s anything like her father she won’t stop moving.”

Her mom comes into the hallway, her face is pinched. “Tessa, you should go sit down, your back was so sore last night. I’ve rearranged the cushions on the couch, hopefully that will help. I can look for some more supportive ones today.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Her mom turns to Alma, “It’s so nice of you to come visit with Tessa.” Her mom seems colder with her these past few weeks, which is weird because if she was going to take out her feelings towards Scott on his mom Tessa would have expected her to do it earlier.

She goes into the living room and Jordan comes in to say goodbye, telling her that she’ll bring her back a copy of _Vogue_. She guesses this is her peace offering.

Alma makes hot chocolate and they watch the early groups of dancers. Alma gets surprisingly critical, and while it’s not very sporting Tessa can’t help but think that she and Scott would have made a much better job of the Ravensburger Waltz.

Her back starts hurting again during an ice resurfacing, and it’s even worse than usual. She hopes it won’t feel as bad as this for the next five weeks.

She rubs her stomach on the way to the bathroom and whispers, “I know it’s not your fault, kiddo, but can you try and make things a little easier for me?”

It takes her a second to register what the blood on the toilet paper combined with the new type of back pain means. She thinks she must be going mad because her first reaction is this hysterical laugh. She could have been at the Olympic fucking Games and here she is going to give birth at sixteen years of age.

And then it really sinks in. She’s in labour. It’s five weeks too soon and she’s going to give birth. She had one job as a… her one job was to keep the baby safe and healthy and she’s going to fail.

The baby isn’t ready to be born, and Tessa isn’t ready to say goodbye.

 

_After_

Scott arrives at the hospital without having been in an accident or getting pulled over by the police so he thinks the drive from Canton went as well as it possibly could have gone. He slams the door and runs towards the entrance. It’s smaller than he expected, but it has that distinctive smell, like someone has cleaned too much and yet never enough. He looks around when he gets inside, he’s not sure where he’s going.

“Scott! Over here!” He sees Jordan sitting on a couch. She looks only slightly less terrified than he feels.

“Is she okay? Where is she? Have you seen her?” he says as soon as he gets to her.

“Tessa?”

Of course he’s talking about Tessa, who else… oh. He’s worried about the baby too, he is, but…

“Yes, Tessa.”

Jordan pops a Milk Dud into her mouth. “I could probably tell you more about the baby. Mom won’t let me in to see her, won’t tell me anything.” She starts sobbing angrily. “She didn’t even tell me what was happening, just got a call and said something had came up, told me to go see a movie. I was watching fucking _Final Destination 3_ while my sister was probably scared out of her mind giving birth in this shitty hospital!” She shoves the Milk Duds packet into his hands. “They don’t even have good candy!”

“Tessa likes these,” he says as he eats one. She’d been so pleased when he bought them for her when they went on dates to the movies.

“Maybe if my mom ever lets us see her we can give her some. When did you find out?”

“My mom rang me after. She told me about the baby being taken to London, she said I shouldn’t worry, that Tessa was going to be fine.” He can’t believe she hadn’t told him that it was happening. He should have been there.

Jordan just shakes her head at this. She hands him her Coke bottle next, but he doesn’t take it.

He’s confused. “Why are you being nice to me? I thought- I thought you must hate me.”

She laughs bitterly, “You knocked up my little sister, of course I hate you. But… Tessa loves you, and you’re clearly a mess right now.”

He’s not sure Tessa still loves him, he doesn’t think she should after what she’s been through because of him.

She rubs her eyes. “Shit, Scott, she was just sixteen.”

“I know we should have waited.” He thinks about it all the time, how it was his responsibility - he was older, he was the one with experience, he should never have agreed. “But she’s just so… _stubborn_.” She wouldn’t drop it, and he was so weak, he’d wanted her so much that it seemed to be all he ever thought about.

Jordan barks out that bitter laugh again. “Can’t argue with you there. Oh my God, when she thinks she’s right…”

They both stand up when they see Kate come into the lobby. It’s like she’s aged ten years since he last saw her.

“Is she okay?” he asks as soon as she gets close enough to hear.

“When can we see her?” Jordan demands.

Kate gives her a look. “Tessa is very tired, but she’s doing well, there’s nothing to worry about. I think it would be for the best if you both went home, there’s nothing you can do here tonight.”

“Please can I see her?” He needs to.

“Scott, it’s been a very hard day for her, she needs her rest.”

He’s gone along with Kate’s wishes for months now, but he isn’t going to just fall in with her plans this time. “I won’t disturb her, I just need to see that she’s okay. I’ll just sit there I promise.”

It’s probably his voice starting to break that makes her eyes soften. “Just for a little while. The maternity wing,” she sounds so sarcastic all of a sudden, “is on the first floor. She’s in the room at the end.”

He takes off leaving Jordan to fight her own battle. The so-called maternity wing is tiny, why did they bring her here instead of taking her to London where her doctor is? That was the plan. He hears a baby crying as he walks down the corridor, shouldn’t they move Tessa somewhere else? What if that upsets her?

When he goes in he sees Tessa curled up facing away from the door and his mom holding her hand. When she sees him she leans over to whisper something in Tessa’s ear, presses a kiss to her hair, and gets up.

She hugs him and at first he doesn’t want to hug her back, he’s so mad with her for not telling him until afterwards, but it’s his mom. “She’s doing okay, Scott, she’s just very tired. I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

He sits down on the chair his mom just left. Tessa hasn’t opened her eyes. He has no idea what he should say to her, maybe he should just let her sleep?

He can’t help reaching out and touching her, to reassure himself she’s really there. She looks so small curled up like that. He puts his hand on top of hers. She doesn’t move so he leaves it there.

“I’m here, Tessa,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier, but I’m here now.” She doesn’t stir.

He stays like that in silence, just holding her hand, until her breathing becomes regular, the same rhythm as when she slept beside him in her bed, or on the couch in his parents’ garage. It’s then that he starts talking. He tells her how much he loves her, how he wishes he’d been there for her more during the pregnancy, how he wishes he’d been there for her today. He tells her that he loves the baby too, how could he not when she’s half Tessa (hopefully all Tessa), when she came from what they had shared? He’s such a coward, he couldn’t say any of this when she might be awake.

He stops after a while, but he keeps holding her hand.

Kate comes in some time after that and whispers that it’s time for him to go. He tells Tessa (and Kate, he’s mainly telling Kate) that he’ll be back in the morning.

His mom drives them home and they don’t speak for the entire ride. He’s too tired to fight with her, and she looks exhausted too.

His dad and his brothers are waiting up for them when they get back but Scott has no idea what to say to them.

He doesn’t sleep much.

 

He asks his mom in the morning why Tessa was taken to that shitty hospital and not the one in London as planned. She goes really white and says, “It all happened so fast.” He can’t get any more details from her.

He asks about the baby and she tells him that he can go visit her if he likes. Danny is sitting at the table with them and he offers to wait for him while he sees Tessa and drive him to London after. His truck is still at the hospital from last night anyway, but it might be good to have someone with him if he goes. He thinks he’d prefer to wait for Tessa to be able to go with him, but maybe she wouldn’t like that.

The baby’s name is Katherine Alma, for now anyway. It feels right to him. He thinks it was a good choice not just because of their moms, but because Katherine could be anyone – Kate, Kathy, Katie, Kat. She could do anything she wanted with a name like that. But, of course, her adoptive parents might have their own name for her, they probably do in fact.

It’s another silent drive, this time with Danny there too.

Danny waits in the car while he and his mom go up to the first floor. Kate is waiting for them outside Tessa’s door, she nods at him and says that she’s awake. His mom stays to talk with her.

He knocks on the door just in case and opens it when he hears her voice.

She’s sitting up wrapped in some fluffy dressing gown that swallows her completely. Jordan is beside her on the bed running a brush through her hair. It’s gotten so long now, almost down to her waist.

She waves at him, this awkward little flutter of her hand, and he waves back.

Jordan puts the brush down and looks at Tessa, at him, and back to Tessa. “I’ll go talk to Mom.” She puts her arms around Tessa’s shoulders and squeezes, then nods at him briskly as she leaves.

He sits down. “How are you?” they say at the same time.

He motions that she should go first. “I’m… tired.”

He waits for her to add something, but she doesn’t. “Are you… in pain?”

She rubs the dressing gown. “I… I don’t really want to talk about it, yesterday that is.” Her voice is so quiet and she won’t look him in the eye.

“Okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” She hadn’t answered his question.

They sit in silence for a while until she says, “They got the baby to London really quickly. They say she’s going to be fine, she just needs some extra care until she grows some more and her lungs have time to develop properly.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, it is.” She looks up at him and her eyes are so sad and empty that it makes him feel like burying his head in the hospital bed covers and crying. “I’m sorry I picked the name without you… I had meant to talk to you about it before but…it felt wrong to pick a name for her when she wasn’t... it didn’t feel like it should be our choice. But they needed a name for the birth certificate, she needed a name, and then it seemed so obvious.”

“It’s perfect, Tessa.” She tries to smile then. He reaches out and places his hand on hers. “I’d like to go see her, Tess, would you like to come with me?”

She removes her hand like he’s burned her. “No. I can’t.”

“Not now, when you’re stronger, or maybe you’d like to go by yourself… it’s just… I’d like you to be with me.”

“I’m not going to see her. I… I saw her already. You, you didn’t get to see her, you should go.”

“You can’t have seen her for very long… that can’t have been what was in your birth plan.”

“I didn’t even have time to finish the birth plan,” she says dully.

“I just… maybe it would be good to see her again. Maybe you could even hold her? She’s our baby…”

“NO.” He doesn’t think he knew what anguish really meant until he hears it in her voice. “She is not our baby, Scott. She is their baby. We just… we made her, and we brought her into the world, but she is not ours.”

He puts his arm around her and leans in to hug her, “I’m so sorry, kiddo, I don’t want to upset you…”

She places her arms in front of her chest as if to shield herself. “Don’t… please don’t.” She’s sobbing now. “I can’t do this right now. I can’t be near you…”

“I’m so sorry, Tessa, I’m so, so sorry…” He has no idea how to help her.

“Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. I’m just… there are so many hormones. My body… it had a baby in it and now it doesn’t and…” She’s crying harder now.

Kate comes in then, “Tessa, darling, it’s okay.” She puts her arm around her back and rests her head on top of Tessa’s hair. “It’s all going to be okay.”

He’s not sure that’s true. He’s never seen her like this, so far away one minute and so emotional the next.

“Scott, maybe you should go now.” Kate’s voice is gentle but her eyes are not.

Tessa wipes her eyes. “You should go see the baby, Scott, I don’t want to stop you from seeing her. I… I’ll see you in a few days. We… we can sign the papers in seven days.”

She must really want all of this over as soon as possible. “Okay. If you need me I’ll… just let me know.”

“Thank you,” Tessa whispers, and the fact that she’s thanking him while she’s lying there crying like he just broke her into pieces makes him want to throw up.

He closes the door quietly but then he starts running past his mom and Jordan and down the stairs and out of the building. He finds himself beside his truck and he kicks the wheel. He hates this fucking truck, hates how every time he’s in it he remembers fooling around with Tessa in the backseat, remembers the last time they were together like that and how she kept repeating how much she loved him right into his ear as she came.

“Scott!” Danny grabs him. “What are you doing?”

“I ruined her life. She’s, she’s a mess, she’s… broken, and I- I did that to her.”

Danny shoves him. “She is not broken, you hear me? You don’t have that power. Of fucking course she’s a mess, Scott. She gave birth prematurely yesterday at sixteen to a baby she’s giving up for adoption. She’s not just going to be okay after that. But she’s strong, and she’s smart, and she’s going to get through this. You both are.”

“I don’t know how to make this better, I don’t know how to take care of her.” He feels water dripping down his cheeks and it takes him a while to realise it’s not rain.

Danny hugs him. “You can’t just make this better… this is hard. But you two are going to make it. You’re going to skate together and you’re going to win all the things you want to win. You’re both too stubborn not to.”

He doesn’t know how Danny can think about skating right now. All Scott can think about is Tessa crying, he hadn’t seen her cry since the day they found out she was pregnant and she’d told her mom when she came in to find them sitting on the floor of the bathroom with the tests spread out in front of them.

“I love her.”

“I know you do, Scott.” His brother puts his arm around his shoulder and guides him to his car. “Do you want to go back home or do you still want to go see the baby?”

“Go see the baby.” He’s afraid that if he waits he’ll never do it.

“Okay then.” Danny starts the car.

Scott had told sleeping Tessa last night that he loved the baby, but that wasn’t always the case. He’d been so resentful towards it at first, and then felt guilty about that. It was hard to think kindly towards the thing that had taken the best part of your life away from you, or at least that was how it had felt then. It hadn’t sunk in at that stage that it was a baby. That hadn’t really sunk in until he’d gone to see Tessa one weekend to talk about the adoption and she’d shown him a sonogram. And then it had hit him all at once. That this was their baby (Tessa can think about it whatever way she wants to, but to him in some way she will always be partly theirs).

It wasn’t until they’d found out she was a girl that the daydreams had started though. A little girl just like Tessa with brown hair and green eyes, who loved to dance, and skate, and was smarter and sweeter than anything he deserved. That was when he knew he loved the baby. Maybe it’s a good thing that Tessa isn’t going to see her, because Scott knows that if he saw Tessa holding their child that all he would want to do is spirit them off somewhere where they could be a family. He thinks he’d give up skating for that, and that terrifies him.

When they arrive at the hospital Danny asks him whether he wants to go in alone. Scott says yes.

This hospital is the one they took Scott to when he banged up his wrist playing hockey in seventh grade, it’s so much busier and more professional looking than the one Tessa’s in. It smells the same though, and it makes his skin clammy. He thinks the size and bustle of the hospital is a good thing, clearly the baby will be well taken care of here, but what if there are so many other babies that she doesn’t get enough attention? What if she’s lonely? But she won’t be lonely, her parents will be with her. The ones who get to take her home.

What if they’re there when he goes in to see her? He doesn’t know how he’d feel about seeing other people hold her. They hadn’t met them because they wanted to keep people from knowing who they were. If it got out that he and Tessa were having a baby that would be all they’d be in ice dance. The team who had an unplanned teenage pregnancy, not the team who really danced, or the team with the great edges.

He looks around the lobby uneasily. What if someone sees him in the NICU? It’s not that they’re famous, but they’re not entirely unknown, and London is not that big, he could easily bump into someone who knows him or Tessa. That’s why Tessa had been holed up in the cottage for the past few months, so no one would find out.

He wants to see her though, he wants to see their baby. He goes over to the map of the hospital to figure out where he’s meant to be going.

He gets in the elevator and presses for the third floor. He’s going to see her, he’s going to see their baby.

That’s when the panic sets in.

What if he sees her and he can’t leave? Tessa has never mentioned the idea of keeping her, he can’t land back to her hospital bedroom and tell her he wants them to be a family. Kate would kill him.

What if he sees her and he decides that she’s worth leaving skating for? He doesn’t know how he’d cope without skating, without Tessa’s hand in his on the ice as they take over the world competition by competition.

What if he sees her and it breaks his heart even more than it’s already been broken? He doesn’t feel like himself anymore, hasn’t since they’d found out. He can’t lose any more of himself, there would be nothing left.

He gets out of the elevator and walks down three flights of stairs and back to Danny’s car.

“That was fast.”

“I didn’t go in. I couldn’t go in.”

Danny looks at him for a long moment. “Okay, maybe we can go again another day.”

They don’t.

 

Eight days after the baby is born Scott and his mom go to Tessa’s house in London to sign the Consent to Adoption forms. Vera and a lawyer who works with the adoption agency are going to be there too because they need a lawyer to witness it (he guesses Jim can’t do it because of conflict of interest or something).

Tessa meets them at the door and she looks transformed. She’s still wearing one of those huge hoodies she wore when she was pregnant but her legs are back in leggings. Her hair is done up on top of her head and her face looks… older now, not as angular. She’s not a girl anymore. She looks so poised, so in control again.

She hugs his mom for a long time. They’ve seen each other every day, but today is different he guesses. His mom says something about having brought cabbages for her and Tessa thanks her but says she doesn’t need them anymore. Tessa doesn’t even like cabbage, why would she have wanted them in the first place?

She turns to him then and wipes something off his shoulder. She blushes, “Sorry, it was a piece of lint.”

“No, it’s fine.” They stand there avoiding each other’s gaze in the hallway.

“So, I’ve already signed the papers. I didn’t want to wait any longer. The lawyer is really nice, she went over everything again.”

He feels stupid for thinking about asking her to go to the hospital with him again, for still picturing what it might be like if she asked him did he think they could be a family.

“Good, that’s good.”

“She’s in the dining room with Vera if you’re ready.”

He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Yeah, I think I’m ready.”

She smiles but it doesn’t look right, it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Okay, I’ll wait for you in the living room.”

She goes down the hall but then turns back. “Oh! Her mom told Vera that she’d like to keep us informed about her for the next few weeks, so that we know when she gets out of hospital. It’s so kind of her, she really doesn’t have to do that, not when it’s a closed adoption.” Her voice starts to tremble and he realises just how brittle she still is, “We must have picked good parents for her, right?”

“We picked great parents for her,” he assures her. They had, parents who did things for charity, who had gone to fancy universities, who travelled. She’d have a great life with them, and she’d do all those things too – go to a great school, travel the world, be brilliant. And that’s the kind of life Tessa can have now too, now that she won’t be tied down.

It’s those thoughts that keep him going as Vera looks at him with her kind eyes, and the lawyer goes over all he needs to hear before signing the forms. The only thing he really takes in is that they still have twenty-one days to revoke consent and have the child returned to them after signing the papers. It tempts the part of him that still imagines him, Tessa, and a little girl. But he thinks of the life she can have, the life Tessa can have, how Tessa looked in that hospital room, and he pictures him and Tessa on top of a podium with ‘Oh, Canada’ ringing out and gold medals around their necks. He signs the papers.

After he sits in the Virtues’ living room with Tessa and their moms as they drink tea and talk about going back to training. They’re all acting like Tessa really was just off injured and it’s so fucking bizarre.

When it’s time to go his mom and Kate head out first. Tessa gets up and hugs him, it seems to surprise her almost as much as it surprises him. She draws back so quickly and wraps her arms around her chest. It’s weird, but she felt so cold he thought she might have had an ice pack down her hoodie.

“I’ll see you soon, Scott.”

He’s going down the hall when she calls his name again. He turns around and she’s looking him dead in the eyes. “I can’t wait to skate with you again.”

For a minute he doesn’t know what on earth is happening to his face but then he remembers this is what grinning feels like. “I can’t wait to skate with you again, too.”

 

Seven days after they sign the Consent to Adoption forms he goes skating with Tessa at the rink in Ilderton. As he’s waiting for her to arrive he wonders if he should maybe mention that they still have two weeks to change their minds, just in case it might have been something she considered. But when he sees her walking towards him he wants nothing more than just to get out on the ice with her again, and he can’t risk it.

She’s back in her normal practice gear but she doesn’t look the same. Her hips are a little wider, her breasts a bit bigger, her bum rounder. She’s so fucking gorgeous, maybe even more so than before.

“I think you’re going to have to help me tie my skates. My hands are shaking.” She waves them a little.

He bends down and starts tying.

“Oh, I was actually joking, you don’t have to do that,” she apologises.

“Don’t worry about it.” He gets up.

“I’m so nervous,” she admits. “It’s been so long, what if I’ve forgotten?”

He gently puts his hands on her shoulders. “You’ve got this, Tessa. We’re going to go slow, take it one step at a time.”

He backs his way onto the ice holding his hands out in front of him. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you, kiddo, I promise.”

She puts her hands in his and gingerly starts to make her way onto the ice. He pushes away the thought that this is how he’d have brought their daughter out on the ice in her first skates. “I know you won’t,” she says simply, like the possibility is something she could never consider. Her eyes are so sad but still so trusting, and it breaks his heart.

She’s so tentative at first, but then she closes her eyes and a smile spreads slowly across her face. “I’ve missed this so much.”

“Me too. Skating without you hardly counts as skating.”

She squeezes his hands and then lets one of them go. He makes a half-turn so that he’s at her side and they start making slow, languid laps around the rink, the crisp sound of their blades joining together in harmony and then unison until they’re skating as one again.

For the first time in months he feels something close to peace.

 

Twenty-two days after they sign the Consent to Adoption forms Tessa returns to Canton. They start off with only light training so that Tessa can build up her strength after her bout of ‘mono’. She disappears the week of her due date, into her room and into herself, and comes back forged in steel. Their skating gets better. He hopes things between them will get better soon too, he doesn’t expect her to want to be with him again (he doesn’t deserve that), but he hopes they can be friends. He needs her.

The window might be gone, but he still dreams about their daughter.

 

**_September 2021_ **

After Katie has tried to put up her hair five times and been more unimpressed with each attempt she decides she should just leave it down. She hadn’t thought she’d be this nervous, but her hands just won’t do what she wants them to. She smooths down her white and blue shirt, at least her outfit looks good. Jenny had come over on Saturday and they’d spent the afternoon picking out clothes.

Jenny hadn’t asked any questions about whether she thought that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir could be her biological parents the day after they’d made their discoveries, she’d just asked if she was okay. And that was why Katie had told her. Of course, there’s always still the chance her biological parents are some other Tessa and Scott (Vera said the adoption agency only released first names until the parties actually met) but hearing those names and reading the files her mum had fished out about her bio parents had more or less concluded things for her.

The files talked about how they were very athletic and both listed dancing as a hobby, plus the descriptions of their families matched up exactly with what Katie had been able to find out about the Virtues and Moirs online. The only slightly surprising thing had been their grades (her mum said she still felt weird about knowing all that information), they were both really good at maths so she can’t blame her genes on that being her weakest subject anymore. One time her grandfather had joked that that was the only way they knew she was adopted what with her parents both working in finance. That had been one of the few times she ever heard her mum raise her voice, she thinks that not having to see her in-laws anymore is probably her favourite part of the divorce (Katie had actually thought it was pretty funny, at least by his standards).

When she goes into her mum’s room to see if she’s ready she finds her standing in front of the mirror wearing one of her most ‘I’m a CPA’ dresses with about half her wardrobe strewn across her bed.

She looks up at Katie in the mirror. “I had picked out what I was going to wear last week, but then I tried it on and it didn’t look right and now I have no idea what to choose.”

“I think that’s a bit… formal. Didn’t you wear it to one of your job interviews?” She starts rummaging through the pile on the bed.

“Yes. This feels a bit like an interview for a job I’ve been doing for over fifteen years. We never got to meet them before.” She comes over to join her. “Well, at least I have an awesome exemplar of work.”

Katie rolls her eyes as her mum kisses her cheek, she’s so cheesy sometimes. “How about this?” She picks up what she thinks is one of the dresses her mum bought for going back to work when she was about eight, it’s red and soft and it reminds Katie of coming home. It doesn’t scream ‘let me forensically assess your accounts’ as much as the blue one she has on. Her dad used to say her mum looked like a Hitchcock blonde, and while she can see the resemblance it had always seemed off to her. Those women were cold while her mum was so warm. Her dad has since married a woman whose main life’s interest appears to genuinely be organising Google calendars so maybe he got what he wanted.

“Oh, that’s perfect, thank you. Will you undo my zipper?” Her mum changes while Katie starts putting the clothes back where they belong.

“Is that what you’re wearing, Laura?” comes her grandma’s voice from the door to the bedroom. “Would you not go for something a bit more… alluring?”

“Why would I want to look alluring?!” Katie is as confused as her mum sounds.

Her grandma makes her way to the bed and sits down. “I think it’s about time you started getting out there again, you’re still young. And Scott Moir is very handsome.”

“Oh my God.” Her mum covers her face with her hands.

This is horrifying. “Grandma, no!!! You can’t want Mum to get with my… biological father! That’s just… NO!”

“I’m old enough to be his mother!”

“Really?” It’s hard to tell from her innocent expression whether this is all a joke or not.

“Yes! I’m twenty years older than he is.”

“People have kids younger than that.” Katie is proof after all.

“I suppose they do,” her grandma agrees. “And there would be the small matter of Tessa. You should ask what’s going on there.”

“Grandma, I am not asking them if they’re dating.”

Her mum has her eyes closed as if she’s asking for patience from a higher power.

It’s something the three of them have wondered about. Katie hadn’t meant to watch all the interviews with her grandma, it had just kind of happened. She’d been looking up Tessa and Scott one night when her grandma had joined her, the two of them in her bed trying to figure out exactly what the deal was with her (presumed) biological parents. Her mum had come in then and asked if this was really a good idea, but she’d seemed kind of intrigued all the same.

Grandma seems to have decided they’re not together, because, Katie shudders at the memory, their “sexual tension reminds me of myself and your grandfather before we got married.”

At which point her mum had chimed in saying “Before you got married? I was born seven months after your wedding and I weighed eight pounds.”

“Hush, Laura, I’ve been keeping quiet about that for over fifty years, I don’t need to start shattering the illusion now.”

Katie had told them she was okay with never hearing anything about that ever, thank you very much.

Her mum turns around. “Mom, shouldn’t you be downstairs waiting for Joan to come pick you up for bridge?”

Her grandpa used to always take her to and collect her from bridge because Grandma hated driving at night, and it was always night when bridge ended because it lasted forever. Katie had gone with her one summer when she’d been visiting and it was possibly the greatest regret of her life.

“Joan? I asked Margot to get me. She drives at a reasonable speed.”

“Reasonable? She’s been given three speeding tickets this past summer alone!”

“Not everyone still drives like they have a baby in the backseat. Katie, your mother used to drive like a normal person, but that changed once you came along.”

Katie thinks her mum drives at a perfectly normal speed. They’re always on time.

“Speaking of my driving, we should really start getting ready to leave. I’ll go down and get the folder with the photos.” Vera had suggested they bring pictures of her growing up to show Tessa and Scott.

Her mum hugs her grandma for a long moment and her grandma rubs her back and whispers something in her ear. When her mum leaves she beckons her over.

She puts one hand on Katie’s cheek and smiles. “I know your mum doesn’t want you getting your hopes too high, and that’s very sensible of her, but I want to tell you that I think this is going to be wonderful.” She gets a little teary-eyed, “You are so special, Katie, so very special, and I’ve always known that the people who made you must be special too. I’m thankful for them every day.”

She hugs her grandma tight. While what she’s saying is lovely, Katie’s not entirely sure that it’s helpful. Her grandma doesn’t know her biological parents, and as great as Tessa and Scott seem, that was all in front of cameras or Jenny’s stories from seeing them at Stars on Ice meet and greets (it’s so weird that Jenny had met them before she had). And even if they are as fantastic as they appear, that doesn’t mean they’re going to like her immediately. Her parents had always told her growing up that her biological parents had loved her, and that had been fine when she was little but now that she’s older she’s not so sure. Even before she’d known who they were she’d wondered if two teenagers who’d got pregnant accidentally could really love her, and now knowing what Tessa and Scott had given up in continuing with the pregnancy… Her existence must have completely messed up their lives. Could they love her after all that?

She lets go of her grandma and thanks her. When she gets downstairs her mum is waiting by the door.

“Are you ready, darling?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” It’s scary, but she wants to meet them. She wants to know what they’re really like.

When they get into the car she goes to put on some music but her mum reminds her that she promised her dad she’d ring him. As if she didn’t have enough going on.

He answers after three rings and sounds so happy to speak to her. For the first while they talk about school, and his work, and baby Alex. Her dad isn’t the best with emotions but talking about all this normal (new normal) stuff is actually quite calming.

“Katie, I know your mum will have told you all of this…,” Then why does he need to go over it? “It’s okay if the meeting is awkward, both you and they are going to be very nervous, but if you ever get uncomfortable and want it to end you just say so.”

This is solid advice, she’ll give him that.

“And just know that your mum and I love you with everything we have.” He pauses. “I love you more than anything in the world.”

She knows he means this, or thinks he does, but he can have a pretty shitty way of showing it.

They’ve pulled into the underground parking of the building where the meeting will take place. “Thanks, Dad. We’re here now.”

The baby starts crying. “Alexander! Such a big sound for such a little man!” He’s using that voice people put on with babies. “Do you want to say hi to your sister?” He returns to his normal voice, “We show him photographs of you every day, he’s going to know who you are when you come visit over the summer for sure.”

She can hate her dad sometimes, and then he says something like that. “Dad?” She blinks, then swallows. “I love you too.”

“If you want to you can ring me after, no matter how late it is over here.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

She hangs up then and wipes her eyes. “Are you ready to go, Mum?”

“I’m ready when you are.”

She nods and unbuckles her seatbelt.

When they’re both out of the car her mum comes around to the passenger side and wraps her into her arms.

“Mum, can you not give me a talk before we go in? I think I might cry, and I don’t want to cry.” They might think she didn’t want to meet them, or that she’d been waiting her whole life for this. It makes her a little guilty honestly, that this is something other adoptees have wondered about for years while it never really bothered her, and here she is – about to meet her bio parents.

“No talks, I’m sure you’ve had enough of them.”

There had really only been the ones from her grandma and her dad, Jenny was the only other person who knew and she’d just said that Katie could talk to her if she felt like it or not if she didn’t and given her a huge hug (her hair smelled amazing, would it be weird if she asked her what shampoo she used?)

Her mum strokes her back and says, “I’ll just say the one thing you always need to remember.”

“Wild horses,” Katie recites into her shoulder.

Her mum replies with the remainder of the line and they head towards the elevator.

Vera is waiting for them on the floor they’re due to meet Tessa and Scott on. She hugs her mum and does a subtle, but definite, double-take when she sees Katie.

“It’s so good to see you, Katie, you were still a little thing when I saw you last.” She knows Vera made follow-up visits during her toddler years, but she doesn’t remember her. She’s been really helpful over the past few days though. “I’ll take you into the room where you’ll be meeting Tessa and Scott. I arranged for them to come a little later like we discussed so that you both have time to catch your breath.”

The room is a lot less office-y than Katie expected. There’s a comfy looking couch across from two high-backed blue armchairs with a low table in between. There are two boxes of tissues and a pretty floral arrangement on the table. The two boxes of tissues are kind of worrying her.

She and her mum sit on the couch and Vera sits across from them. “Do you have any questions, or concerns?”

They shake their heads.

“If anything pops up just let me know.” She taps her hands on the folder on her lap. “There is one thing that you should probably be aware of, I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure all parties were going to go through with the meeting, but… Tessa and Scott are actually quite well known in Canada. I’m not sure how aware you were of winter sports when you were in the U.K., but they’re very successful athletes, they…”

“Are the most decorated Olympic figure skaters of all time and three-time Olympic champions,” Katie supplies. Oh. She probably shouldn’t have just said that.

She looks over at her mum who just squeezes her shoulder.

Vera blinks a few times. “Yes. That, that’s who they are. May I ask… how did you know that?”

“Oh, well… it’s a bit weird honestly. You see, my friend is a big fan of theirs and she said I looked really like Tessa, and then she showed me some old videos, and then I realised their moms’ names were my name, and we looked at old photographs of when they were kids, and then I went home and talked about it with my mum and… I wanted to know whether it was all just a crazy coincidence or not.” She shrugs, “Once we’d looked over the old files Mum had and heard their first names we were basically sure it was them.”

“Well, this is a first for me.” Vera laughs so Katie guesses she isn’t angry. “You do have such a strong resemblance to Tessa, to both of them really.”

“What are they like?” This seems to be one of those days were words just pop out of her, how useful for the day she meets her bio parents.

Vera seems to be thinking it over.

“You don’t have to say anything, it might be a confidentiality thing or something…”

She smiles kindly. “I think from reading that file they prepared, both in how they described themselves and in the work they put into it, you can tell that they’re dedicated. And you can see that in what they’ve achieved with their skating too.”

Dedicated. That’s a good attribute. Her mum is like that.

“Would you like me to be in the room with you for the meeting or would you prefer for me to be outside?” Vera asks.

“I think I’d like it if it were just me and my mum and them.” She doesn’t want to put it on show for someone else, even someone like Vera.

“Of course. I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything. You can have this meeting last ten minutes or… well, maybe not quite ten hours, but as long as you feel comfortable, you set the pace here, Katie. And I’ve told Tessa and Scott that they can end the meeting when they need to as well, we don’t want anyone to feel like they have to push through if they’re finding things difficult.”

Her mum rubs her back. “My dad told me that, too.”

“That’s good. I think Tessa and Scott should be here about now so I’ll go check for them, I’ll knock before we come in.” Vera smiles and heads out the door.

She puts her head on her mum’s shoulder. “Can you stay right beside me?” she whispers.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Her mum hugs her tight. They sit like that for a minute or two (or maybe longer, Katie can’t tell), until they hear a knock at the door.

Her mum looks at her and she nods. They stand up and her mum says, “Come in.”

Vera enters first and they come in behind her holding hands. It’s stupid, but the first thing she thinks is that Jenny was right when she said they were actually even better looking in person. How are these people her biological parents?

Their eyes widen when they see her, Scott’s are so big she thinks they might pop out of his head. They smile at her and it’s like watching two suns come out in the one sky. The only people who’ve ever smiled at her like that are her family.

She has no clue what to do. Her hand starts waving. And they wave right back at her as if what she did was totally normal.

Vera guides them over to the chairs. It almost looks like Scott is stuck for a second until Tessa gently tugs his hand.

Her mum lets go of her for long enough to shake hands with them and introduce herself. Katie stays where she is, she can’t just shake their hands, that’s way too formal, and she certainly can’t hug them, that seems much too… big. She doesn’t know them, has just met them, and yet they’re the entire reason she is here on this earth.

Her mum returns to her side and they sit down.

Tessa and Scott move the armchairs closer together and she almost laughs because she thinks she saw them do that at a competition one time. Their feet are touching and their hands are wrapped in one another’s so it’s like they’re sharing one chair.

“It’s so good to meet you, Katie,” Tessa says softly. Hearing her say her name makes her heart squeeze tight, she hadn’t known how much she’d wanted that to happen.

“We’ve- we’ve really been looking forward to this,” Scott adds. He shakes his head a little, “Vera mentioned it before we went in but… you look so like Tess.”

It’s only then that Katie notices that Vera isn’t in the room anymore, all she’s been able to concentrate on is Tessa and Scott, and her mum’s hand on her shoulder and her arm secure at her back.

“That’s how I figured out you were my bio parents,” she blurts out.

They both go really wide-eyed again. “You, uh, figured it out?” Tessa asks.

How can she explain it to them?

She stays silent for a few seconds and then her mum steps in. “Katie’s friend had mentioned that she thought Katie looked very like you, and then they watched some videos, and looked at some photos and, well… things started falling into place.”

“I’m sorry, this is really weird.” They’re going to think she’s some crazy stalker.

“No,” Tessa says, “it’s not weird. If… if I had seen you I would have known it was you.” She smiles, “You have the… you have Scott’s eyes.” The ways she says it is like it’s something she had always known.

And it’s then that Katie gets really overwhelmed. They clearly, really, truly love her, it’s been all over their faces since they walked in. She should have known; her mum is always right. They obviously don’t look at her the way they look at each other (that would be traumatising, not even the huge divorce settlement her dad had made her mum take could pay for that therapy), but they’re still watching her like they’re hanging on her every word, her every expression. Tessa would have known she was her, would have known she was her biological daughter. Tessa would have known her.

Scott takes her out of her spiral by saying, “Uh, did you, both of you, watch all the videos? Some of them… I mean, I knew they were out there and that you could see them, but I really don’t think I’d processed that…”

Tessa rubs his arm.

“Oh, don’t worry!” her mum breezes. “We loved them all! _Carmen_ is my favourite, my mother’s too.”

She shuts her eyes. This can’t be happening. It’s like her mum has been possessed by her grandma.

“Oh! That’s… what a compliment,” Tessa says eventually.

Katie opens her eyes and looks into Tessa’s and all of a sudden they’re both giggling.

“I’m so sorry,” her mum sounds mortified. “I don’t know why I said that. It is my favourite but… I’m just so nervous.”

“Me too,” Tessa and Scott breathe out at the exact same time.

Tessa touches her stomach. “I feel like all the butterflies in Ontario have taken up residence here.”

“I haven’t eaten all day,” Scott says.

She joins in, “My hands wouldn’t stop shaking earlier.”

Her mum kisses her head and Tessa and Scott smile at her like they understand.

“Why don’t we look at the photographs?” her mum suggests.

Tessa roots in her handbag and when she and her mum swap folders they realise they match.

“Did you get yours in Laywine’s too?” Tessa asks.

“Yes! They have such a lovely selection.”

Katie looks over at Scott while they start gushing about pens. “Have you been dragged there, too?” she asks him.

“I volunteered to go with her, I couldn’t even complain about how long it took. It was torture.”

She laughs, and he looks so incredibly pleased by this. Then she glances at Tessa who looks even happier as she squeezes Scott’s hand.

Her mum places the folder Tessa handed her over both their laps and Katie opens it.

“We weren’t sure what exactly to include so it’s a mixture of photos from when we were younger and more recent ones,” Tessa explains.

The first photo looks to be the two of them around the time they started skating together, all toothy grins. There are photos of them with their families, photos of them on their own, lots of ones of them together. She recognises their coaches, Marie-France and Patrice, sitting at a table with them in what seems to be someone’s home. There’s a photo of Tessa in a graduation gown with her mom and her sister by her side, and another of a slightly older Tessa in a graduation gown with her mom, her sister, and Scott by her side.

Two things stand out about the collection of photos. The first is that there’s only one picture of them on ice, and they’re not competing or even doing much of anything – just the two of them skating side by side, holding hands and talking to one another dressed in practice clothes. The second is that there are no photos of them with kids even though there are a bunch of family shots and she knows they both have nieces and nephews. She wonders if this is because they didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, or if being around kids together is hard for them. She hopes it’s not.

She looks up at them sometimes and then has to look away because she feels like she’s intruding. Scott has his arm around Tessa now and she’s leaning into him, they take one photo at a time and stare as if they’re trying to imprint it, imprint her, in their memories.

At one point Tessa gasps. “This photo… it’s just like one of me and my mom.”

She shows it to them and Katie smiles. It’s the one of her in her red jumper, jeans, and Lelli Kelly shoes. “I saw that photo online. When Mum was looking at it later… that was when I knew.”

Scott’s looking at it and shaking his head. “It’s crazy.”

“The one of me is one of my mom’s favourites, she keeps it by her bed.”

“That’s where I keep my copy of that one,” her mum says.

“Wow,” Tessa looks down at the photo again. “Sorry, do you have any questions about the photos of us?”

Her mum looks at her to see if she wants to reply and then says, “I did notice that there aren’t any of you competing, or any of your medals.”

Tessa blushes. “If we’d known you already knew about it we might have put some in, but it felt… tacky I guess?”

“We didn’t want to seem like we were trying to impress you,” Scott clarifies. “That photo of us skating is what the day to day was like back when we were competing anyway. It’s what skating is to me.”

Katie examines the picture she’s holding again. “Is this…” how should she put this, “is this from when you guys were…” She doesn’t even know what they were doing to make her, maybe it was a one-time thing. She shows them the picture. A young Scott is laughing and Tessa is beaming with happiness.

“That’s from right after Junior Worlds in 2005. That was when we started dating,” Tessa smiles.

“So you were dating.” That sounds terrible. “Not that I didn’t think you had been, I just…”

Tessa’s voice is so calm and understanding. “Don’t worry. How would you have known?”

“Would you, uh, would you like us to talk to you about that? Back then?” Scott asks.

“Yes.” She breathes in and out. “I’ve always known why you didn’t parent me, you were so young, but I’d like to know why… how I got here I suppose. How it happened, not _details_ you know, just…”

Her parents had explained to her when she was very small that her biological parents were very young when they had her so they couldn’t take care of her, and that had made more and more sense to her as she got closer to the age they had been when she was born. Honestly, the bit she didn’t get was why anyone would want to do the thing that got you pregnant with a boy (she supposes she will sometime?) Before when she thought about her bio parents it had usually been her bio mom she wondered over, she’d never known just how involved her bio dad might have been or not have been post-conception. That’s kind of hilarious now that she knows who they are.

“Sure, we can do our best,” Tessa rescues her.

Scott begins, “We started dating right after Junior Worlds, or maybe when we were there I suppose. We had liked each other for a long time, well, I know I’d liked Tessa for ages…”

“I had a crush on him for at least a year before that, it was a bit pathetic really.”

“We got there in the end.” He looks over at Tessa quickly with a soft smile on his face and then turns back to her. “Things got more… serious over the summer. Like you said, we were so young, maybe too young to be doing what we were doing.”

“No,” Tessa frowns. “We were young, and obviously I don’t recommend what we were doing at that age, but, for me - I was with the exact right person and I’ve never regretted it. We were responsible about it all, except…”

“It really does just take one time.”

“Did you, um… not use contraception?” Should she be asking this?! This must be making them uncomfortable.

“Oh no,” Scott says quickly. “We did use contraception… It was just that… Condoms that have been in wallets for two years aren’t fit for purpose, especially when your older brother probably only gave it to you as joke and it might not have been in date.”

“An out of date condom,” she says. “I exist because of an out of date condom.” Really, it’s not a bad reason in the scheme of things, one of her friends back in England was conceived at a swingers’ party. Why that friend had felt the need to ruin a sleepover with that piece of knowledge Katie has never understood.

“And love,” Tessa says firmly. “We were so in love, that’s why we were together like that.”

“Is that…” Her throat starts to itch. “Is that why you continued with the pregnancy?” She hadn’t meant to cry, but the tears are coming now. “Because I used to worry before I knew it was you, and still, I don’t know… I… I was scared that maybe it wasn’t your choice. You were so young, and being pregnant must have been so hard and why would you do that if…”

“Oh, Katie, no.” Tessa reaches out her hand as if to touch her and then draws it back.

She closes the distance between them and takes Tessa’s hand in hers. They match. It’s different to when she holds hands with her mum (who still reaches for her when they cross the street sometimes, it’s humiliating), her hands are bigger than Katie’s and they feel so safe. Tessa’s hands are the exact same size as her own, but she feels safe in them too, especially with her mum holding her as well. She doesn’t know why she’s comparing them. Her mum is her mum, and Tessa is Tessa, and there’s no reason why she can’t care about them both.

Tessa is looking at their interlocked hands like she can’t quite believe it, like maybe this is something she’s been waiting for a very long time. Katie remembers then that when she’d been born they’d rushed her to a bigger hospital straight away and it strikes her that maybe this is the first time Tessa has ever touched her. That’s a lot to process.

She closes her eyes and Tessa starts to speak.

“When I found out I was pregnant I knew that I wasn’t ready to be a mom, I was too young, and we couldn’t give a child, couldn’t give _you_ , the kind of life you needed. I knew that I had options, and I knew that there was nothing wrong about choosing to… to terminate. I would have been supported if I’d made that decision, no one would have pushed me in another direction.” She puts her other hand on top of Katie’s. “I chose adoption, it was my decision.” She says it with such conviction, and then her tone softens, becomes wistful almost. “I loved Scott, and I loved what we had between us, and you came from that, so it was the most natural thing in the world to love you too.”

Her voice breaks then, but she keeps going. “And yes, being pregnant was hard, but it was… there were some wonderful parts, too. I still remember what it felt like when you moved. You were so active, oh my God, some days it was like you never stopped. And I loved that, it was the best part of those months. You liked music, or I guess I thought you did, because you were even more active when any was playing, I thought that maybe you’d be a dancer.”

“I did dance, I took ballet for years.” She’d only stopped when they moved back to Toronto, maybe she could start again now that she was more settled.

Tessa starts telling her about the songs she especially liked back then, and she tries to take it in but all she can think about is how at one time in her life it had been just the two of them. It’s silly of her, but it’s like there’s something familiar about being in the dark like this with her eyes closed listening to Tessa. She’s too rational a person to think it’s an actual memory, but maybe there’s a part of her that recognises the first person to ever love her.

She opens her eyes and sees Tessa still looking down at their intertwined hands. Scott has both his arms around her now, and his head against hers. It’s hard to tell which of them is holding the other up.

Are they together now? Oh God, are they not together now and it’s all because of her?!

She asks the exact question she told her grandma she wouldn’t, “Are you dating?”

They both straighten up and look at her, then at each other, and then back to her.

“Katie,” her mum says gently, “maybe that isn’t something that Tessa and Scott want to discuss right now.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Tessa squeezes her hand reassuringly. “It’s just…” She turns her face to Scott and, blushes?!

“Tessa and I love each other very, very much, and we’re, uh, working things out right now.” Scott sounds a bit dazed by this.

“Okay, that’s good. I was worried, I don’t know… that you weren’t together because of me?” It’s weird that she’s just telling them all of this.

“Absolutely not.” Tessa shakes her head. “We did break up, well, I’m not entirely sure when - it wasn’t an official thing, sometime after we found out I was pregnant, but that wasn’t because of you, it was that we weren’t mature enough to be able to talk about the pregnancy and how we felt about it. If it hadn’t been the pregnancy it could have been moving up to seniors, or my compartment syndrome.”

Scott nods in agreement. “We were so in love, but I think that was probably too much for us to handle along with everything else.”

He kisses Tessa on the side of her head, and then he goes really red like he’d forgotten where they were or something. She smiles like it’s coming from deep inside her and it reminds Katie of the photo of them when they started dating that’s still sitting on her lap.

“Are these photos copies? Could I keep them?”

Tessa blinks really fast. “Yes, of course, they’re yours if you want them.”

“The ones we gave you are yours to keep, too.”

“Really?” Scott sounds like he’s in awe.

Tessa bursts into tears, these loud, messy sobs that seem so at odds with the poise Katie has associated with her from all those interviews she watched. She removes one of her hands from on top of Katie’s and wipes her eyes. Scott hands her some tissues and rubs her arm.

“I’m so sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, I didn’t want to upset anyone, but…”

“You never had any photos of her before.” Her mum is sobbing too.

“No, just the sonograms. And I only saw you for such a short time…”

“It must have been so difficult, the birth, and what happened afterwards.” Katie hands her mum one of the boxes of tissues.

Tessa goes two shades paler and sinks into Scott a little. “I… don’t remember it all that well. I was so scared about how early it was, that’s all that’s really stayed with me. They tried to stop the labour but it didn’t work.” Her voice quietens, “You were so small.” She looks over towards her mum, “I’ve always been so grateful that you sent word about how she was doing afterwards, you didn’t have to do that, and… I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t know, if we didn’t know.”

Katie wishes she could make her feel better. She wants to hug her, but maybe it would be strange if she just got up and went over to her. “We have albums and albums of photos at home, my dad was really into photography back then. You two should come and see all of them.”

She realises the second she says this that it’s probably something she should have talked about with her mum. She looks behind her quickly, but her mum just smiles.

"Definitely. You can all get to know each better more easily someplace other than an office block.”

They turn around to see that Scott has started crying now too. “We’d love that,” he says.

Katie takes the packet of tissues off her mum and grabs a few. She gets why there are two boxes now.

“Maybe we should wrap things up for today, it’s getting late and I think we’re all a little emotional. We can swap numbers and arrange something.” Her mum rubs her back.

“That sounds good,” Tessa smiles. She’s still wiping her eyes.

Katie doesn’t know what to say. Should she thank them? Should she say goodbye, or see you soon?

Her mum stands up, then Tessa and Scott, and she gets up last. And then it seems obvious that she doesn’t need to say anything.

She just takes a step and hugs Tessa.

She seems surprised at first, but then she holds her tight and it surprises Katie just how natural it feels. It’s not like hugging a stranger. She’d always thought people overstated the importance of biology, it had never been important to her family (or at least not for her and her mum), so maybe it’s not that link that makes her feel connected to Tessa, maybe it’s just the way Tessa is. The other thing that surprises her is so stupid, it makes no sense, but she must have been expecting Tessa to smell like that Guerlain perfume her mum and grandma use, so the scent of strawberries and vanilla takes her aback. Tessa is a little taller than her, but she thinks that’s mainly due to the small heels she’s wearing, they’d probably be the same height otherwise.

It’s not as much that she wants to let go as she doesn’t want to seem like she’s clinging on, but she moves back after a while. Tessa looks… luminously happy, and it’s crazy that she was the one to make that happen.

She hugs Scott then and he’s definitely surprised because it takes him a while to hug her back. When she watched him and Tessa skate she’d always wondered how Tessa could trust him so much, how she always believed he’d keep her safe when they were doing all those acrobatic lifts at such speed across the ice. She thinks she might get it now, at least a little bit.

After she lets go of him she looks over at Tessa, who looks even happier and more emotional at her hugging Scott than she had been after their own hug. Katie feels like hugging her again, but then she’d have to hug Scott again and that sequence could keep repeating for ages. She really should have done her French homework before this meeting.

“Katie, darling,” she looks back towards her mum, “if you’re ready would you mind heading out ahead of me? I’d just like a moment with Tessa and Scott.”

“Yeah, sure.” She turns back to them, “I’ll see you again soon.”

She hugs both of them at once, and it’s not uncomfortable, she guesses they’re so used to fitting around each other that they make it work.

She heads out of the room and as she closes the door behind her she sees her mum hugging Tessa.

Vera stands up when she comes out the door. “How are you feeling, Katie?”

She thinks about it. “Good. It was… more than I expected.” She thought it would be awkward, and it had been for a while, but being with them had felt so normal so quickly.

Vera smiles. “I’m so glad for you.”

“They were so lovely, and kind, and… I could tell they really love me?” Vera has that kind of face that makes it feel like you could tell her anything. “What if they’ve been missing me all this time and I haven’t been missing them? I didn’t even think about them all that often.” It had scared her she thinks now, the enormity of what her bio parents, what Tessa and Scott, had done for her.

“Katie, they wouldn’t have wanted you to be missing them,” Vera tells her firmly. “They wanted you to have the best life you could have, to be happy. They… they took it so seriously, the whole adoption process. I’ve never forgotten it.”

“We’re going to meet up again soon, at our house.” She’s excited about that. She thinks her grandma will be very excited.

Vera smiles even wider. “That’s great.”

Katie hears the door open and close. Her mum puts an arm around her.

“I hear things went well,” Vera says.

“Better than I could have imagined.” Her mum sounds like she’s been crying again. “We’re going to see them again soon, is it okay if we just organise that ourselves?”

“Yes, I’ll still be available if any of you need to discuss anything, but what happens from here on out is up to you.”

Katie feels good about what’s to come for them.

They make their goodbyes and head towards the elevator. When they get inside it her mum wraps her into her arms.

“I’m so happy for you, Katie. So, so happy.”

“I’m sorry about inviting them over, I should have asked you first.”

The elevator stops and they walk out back towards the car. “There’s no need to apologise. If you’d done it at the start I’d have been a bit concerned, but by that point I think I’d have been worried if you hadn’t wanted to see them again. They were… everything I thought they could be and more.”

“Yeah, I didn’t expect to… to feel like this.” Her mum unlocks the car and they both get in. “They don’t feel like parents though, you know?” She doesn’t want her mum to think they’re going to replace her or something crazy like that.

Her mum nods. “That makes sense.”

“But… I think they still feel like family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have the time I'd love to hear what you thought, either here or on tumblr where I can be found under the same name <3


	5. 'I know I dreamed you'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to M, who knows her Canadian gardens from her backyards. Thank you to peacefulboo for her help with a Very Important Research Question, and all her encouragement. Thank you to do_not_confess whose editing was especially invaluable for this chapter and who makes this whole experience so much more enjoyable.

_**February 2018** _

Tessa doesn’t think they’ve ever been more prepared for anything than they are for these Olympics. It’s two days until their short dance in the individual event and she’s both raring to go and wishing that she could stay here in this process with Scott. Of course, February 17th holds more significance for them than just being two days before their final competitive short dance. It’s still difficult for her, she thinks it always will be. If left to her own devices she would probably spend the day in bed but any year they’ve been competing (that being all but two of the intervening years) they’ve either been at an event or in heavy training so it’s never usually been an option. The worst was 2014 when it fell on the same day as the free dance and afterwards Tessa had felt like none of what she’d done in those eight years had been worth anything. Or maybe 2015 when she hadn’t spoken to Scott in weeks, maybe that had been the worst.

The last two years have been good though, they have a tradition now. In 2016 they’d been just about to announce the comeback and had arranged to meet up to discuss what to say for their CBC interview. She’d gone to her favourite bakery in London to pick up pastries for them and when she was there she saw this pink cupcake and some candles beside the register. She bought them without really processing what she was doing and felt so silly about it when she arrived home. But then when Scott came around he’d mentioned what day it was in the softest and most gentle tone and when she took out the cupcake and candles he’d hugged her so tight. They made a wish (or maybe a prayer) and blew them out together.

He had been the one to produce the cupcake and candles the following year when he’d shown up at her bedroom door following the Four Continents free dance. She’d muttered something about their training diet but he gave her a look and said they had just won a championship, and it was her birthday. They got frosting all over the bedspread when they tried to halve it and they were still attempting to clean it up when Kaitlyn had come in a little later.

So, it really shouldn’t surprise her that he takes out a candle and some matches from his pocket when they sit down to their salmon, vegetables, and rice after practice in the crowded athletes’ dining hall.

“Are you okay with doing it now?” he asks.

“I had some in my room for later, but now is good.” They’re on their own for once with none of their teammates close by. No one is watching them and despite all the clamour around it feels intimate somehow.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” She reaches out and squeezes his hand. It’s not like they’re going to be announcing the intent of what they’re doing. “We can just say it’s to celebrate the anniversary of our silver medals if anyone asks.”

He raises his eyebrows at that, and then pushes the candle into her piece of salmon. “I hope we don’t get thrown out for setting fires or anything,” he whispers as he starts rubbing the match against the side of the box.

“And everyone says I’m the one who likes rules,” she teases.

He snorts and then lights the candle. They join hands, one on either side of their dinner plates, and close their eyes.

For the third year in a row Tessa makes two wishes, one for her – that she’s happy and healthy – and one for herself – that one day she’ll get to see her again, and maybe get to hold her. She doesn’t imagine it, she can’t do that, especially not now with so much on the line, she just wishes for it. Prays for it.

Tessa only needs three fingers to count the times she has let herself dream of hugging her after giving birth (once she’d decided to continue with the pregnancy she’d allowed herself to imagine holding the baby every single day, and then the baby was gone and it felt like almost all of her was missing too).

The last time had been after Scott started dating Cassandra. It’s almost comical now how much anxiety that had caused her, but the news that he was dating an Ilderton girl one of his cousins had set him up with had made her do what any mature 24 year old who had been in and out of therapy for six years would do – drink. She’d drunk the cheapest vodka Costco had to offer straight from the bottle and thought about how he was going to marry her and have little Moir babies who’d grow up skating at the Ilderton rink. She’d never worried about him settling down with Jess because she just couldn’t see him marrying a Québécoise, and they were always so off and on again anyway. The more she drank the more she thought about how she should be the only one he should have Moir babies with, after all they’d made one already. And when she was really tragically drunk she’d thought about how maybe in some other life they had that Moir baby with them always, maybe they lived in Ilderton and Scott coached at the rink and she taught school or something and in the evenings they skated with their daughter in between them, hand in hand in hand. Tessa would read to her every night and her daughter would always want one more hug before she went to sleep. Scott would come in then to kiss her goodnight and he’d take Tessa’s hand and lead her downstairs. He’d place his hands on her stomach and talk to their new baby (they’d be ready for another one by now, they wouldn’t want her to be an only child for too long), and then he’d pull her close to him and kiss her, whispering in her ear about how much he wanted her, how beautiful she was to him like this. It all seemed a more inviting prospect than whatever shitshow was starting to unfold at Arctic Edge, or at least it had until she’d started throwing up the vodka and her dreams into the toilet cistern, leaving all of it behind.

After meeting Cassandra she wondered why she’d worried so much.

The second (-to-last) time she’d permitted herself to dream of hugging her as a little girl had been after her second compartment syndrome surgery. Scott had been so sweet with her, so supportive (so different to the first time when he was so awkward and she hadn’t wanted him there anyway, had felt like she didn’t deserve it when she was risking everything they’d worked for all over again, and now she knows he was feeling guilty too), that it had made her think that if he’d been like this when she was pregnant that things might have been different. That they might have decided to parent. Tessa imagined picking her up from preschool and her daughter coming running out to tell her all she’d learned that day. Tessa would scoop her up in her arms and hold her tight before passing her to Scott who’d put her on his shoulders and they wouldn’t even care about all the older parents curling up their mouths. She’d have cheered them on in the stands in Vancouver because they would have worked so hard to be their best for her, to show her that she could do anything she wanted. There would be two rings on Tessa’s left hand because Scott would have wanted to marry her before the Olympics, to make sure she knew it didn’t matter what happened, that he’d always be there. Imagining all that was lovely for five minutes, but it was just a mixture of good painkillers and childish yearnings, and when the illusion broke it was so painful that she’d pushed him away.

The first time (or times) had been the week of her due date. It was her second week back in Canton and she’d intended to go to training that morning, she really had, but she couldn’t get up. Her mind was full of her, and not just thoughts of how this should have been the week she was born, or even thoughts of holding her for an hour, but thoughts of all the worlds where she might hold her forever. She’d tried to make some of these scenarios realistic, seeing as Scott had never said anything about parenting, maybe he would have no interest and not be involved, but that idea was ludicrous really, this was _Scott_ , he’d never just abandon his child. So, she’d pictured herself living in London with the baby, maintaining the highest GPA of any teen mother who ever did school online, and Scott in Canton skating with someone else, dating other girls, coming back every weekend to spend time with the daughter who adored him (she was her mother’s child after all). But no matter how many ways she played with this in her head he always ended up back in her arms, whether it took one year, or three, or five, or ten. Day after day passed as she pictured all these other lives and her mom flitted in and out of her room, trying to get her to eat, or at least open the curtains. She knew she was really worried when Scott came after practice (she’d heard him at the door every day) and her mom asked him to go into her room and try and talk to her. He’d knocked and asked if he could come in and she’d told him no, that she didn’t want to see him (she did, she wanted him to come in anyway and lay down beside her and wrap his arms around her and never let go). That night she’d got up to go the bathroom and when she walked out of her room she found her mom asleep in the hall, her head on a pillow against the wall. She’d woken her up and said she should just sleep in her bed with her. She’d cried then, all the tears she had to cry and then some, and her mom had hugged her the whole time. The next morning they went for a walk around the block and two days later Tessa went back to training.

“Tess?” Scott rubs her wrist with his thumb.

She opens her eyes. The candle has nearly burned down. They lean their heads close together and blow.

Scott removes the candle and then scrapes off some dripped wax from her salmon with his knife.

She feels like she should explain. “Sorry, I was just thinking about her… and about us.” He looks up. “We’ve come a long way.”

“We’ve still got a bit to go.” He sounds… wistful maybe. She wishes his thumb wasn’t on her pulse, he must be able to feel it quickening. “With skating I mean.”

“Of course.” She’ll give him this even if his ears are turning slightly red. It’s not like they have the time or emotional space to get into what other ways their relationship might have a way to go two days before the individual event. She’s not sure when she’ll be ready for that conversation, if it’s even one he wants to have.

They start to eat then and Tessa tries to guess what the Danish athletes behind her are talking about. Probably not their birthday celebration for the child they placed for adoption.

“I much prefer this Olympic schedule to the last one,” he says, scooping up rice onto his fork.

“It was horrible,” she agrees.

“Tess, even if we don’t… it’s not going to be like that.”

“I know it won’t. And afterwards is going to be different too.” She reaches for his hand again. “I’m not going anywhere.” She hopes he isn’t either, she’s become so used to being close to him again, she doesn’t know what would happen if they were to drift apart.

He smiles at her and she smiles back. She keeps her hand in his while they eat the rest of their meal and she hopes that no one is lurking around taking photos. With all the media attention about them and their chemistry she’s been getting a bit anxious that some reporter is going to do a deep dive on their relationship and somehow find everything out. She’d told Scott about this when they were back in Seoul and he’d put his hands on her face and reminded her that apart from their immediate family the only people who knew had professional obligations not to disclose anything. And then he’d put his forehead against hers, his hands tightening around her waist, and said “I’d do anything to protect you, to protect the both of you.” Patrice had come in then so that was the end of that discussion, and possibly the most romantic moment of Tessa’s twenties.

They get up from the table and leave their plates at the cleaning station. “We’re not the only ones who have not so great Olympic memories. Marie-France and Patrice have some demons too,” she says.

“Yeah, Marie was telling me about how the free dance in Turin was the 20th too, just like this year. I think she felt bad about mentioning it after, like she was putting pressure on us.” He holds the door open for her as they leave the canteen.

“I don’t know how long it was before I heard they hadn’t actually taken part in the free dance after the fall in the OD.”

“You were… busy,” he says quietly as they sidestep a large group of Chinese athletes who smile at them and give them the thumbs up.

“It’s all such a blur, you know? So many emotions one moment and then feeling totally numb the next. And it hurt, everything hurt.” There had been no escaping the evidence of what had happened, her body a monument to what it was missing. She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this now in some hallway in South Korea.

He looks like he wants to ask her something so she nods to tell him he can. They head out into the wind and make their way to their accommodation.

“My mom said she was worried that something really bad might happen during…” his voice trails off as they pass a crowd of people taking photos of the Village. “Did you think that too?”

“Really bad? I mean, I was scared it was too early and that she wasn’t going to be okay, but the actual labour wasn’t that bad. Physically at least.” It was a different story in every other way.

“She talked to me about it a little a few months later and she was still so messed up about it.” God, she hopes Alma didn’t make him think she had ever been in danger or anything. He lets them into their building with his swipe card.

“I think it was maybe nearly worse for her and my mom than it was for me. I had something to do. And…” She thinks back to that little room with one of them on each side gripping onto her hand. “Mom was really prepared for all the medical stuff, she’d been obsessed with it the whole time, it really irritated me honestly, but your mom wasn’t I don’t think.” She leans into him, “I can’t believe it’s been twelve years.”

“I know, it feels like yesterday and like… three lifetimes ago at the same time.”

“We got through it,” she says as they round the corner to her room. She doesn’t add the ‘just about’ that she’s thinking.

“We did. I’m proud of us, kiddo.” She can smile when he calls her that now.

“Me too.” They’re at her door now. “Do you… want to come in?”

He looks at her, considering. “Would you like me to?”

He’s so good at knowing what she needs now. “I think… maybe I could do with some alone time. But I’ll call you later.”

“Yeah, sure.” He hugs her and she rests her head on his shoulder.

“One more day of practice, Scott.”

“We’re so ready this time. We could fill that rink with rice.”

She laughs, and then thinks of that big rink with the purple boards. “I want it to feel like it’s just us out there.”

“It will.” He strokes her back. “It always does in the end. Just you and me.”

“You and me,” she repeats, “always.”

He’s silent for she doesn’t know how long until he whispers it back into her ear and it settles somewhere within her. Part of her wishes she could see his face, but she doesn’t think she’s ready for what it could tell her, whether the way he means always is the same way she wants.

She steps back then and he kisses her forehead and says he’ll talk to her later. She goes into her room and does her visualisation exercises (and if after that she does some other type of visualisation exercise she doesn’t think anyone who has seen Scott’s hands all over her would blame her).

 

They win, and it is absolutely glorious.

She thinks it’s the purest form of happiness and triumph she’s felt in the longest time. It doesn’t fade either, not like after Vancouver when she’d expected that joy to make the other parts of her life better too. She can enjoy this win for the wonderful thing it is, not desperately want it to fix all her problems. Maybe this is healing.

 

**_September 2021_ **

When Tessa had dreamed about hugging the baby she doesn’t think she’d ever thought about hugging her as a teenager, she doesn’t think she ever got that far. The dreams would never have measured up anyway.

When Katie puts her arms around her Tessa is too surprised to do anything, it’s even more overwhelming than her reaching out to take her hand had been. But then Tessa holds her close and for the second time that day the world reorders around her. She’d never imagined hugging Katie, who is fifteen and bright and kind and beautiful and probably as tall as she is. She’d imagined hugging little girls whose faces she could never quite see. And as she hugs Katie those faceless girls fade away because she has the real one right here in her arms and she knows that this is how it was always meant to be. Tessa went to three Olympics, got two degrees, and had the one man she’s ever loved by her side the whole time (Scott who loves her, who wants to be with her, always). Katie was raised by a family who adored her, who gave her all the opportunities she could dream of, the family she was meant to have. And now they’re here together in this Toronto office block, all because Katie saw some old videos, like maybe their paths were always meant to join again.

She’s not sure how long the hug lasts before Katie lets go and turns towards Scott. If Tessa had thought hugging her was special, seeing her embrace Scott is something else entirely. He wasn’t expecting it, it takes him a few beats to put his arms around her, but then he has this smile on his face that’s a little bit of wonder and a lot of joy. Sometimes when she looks at Scott she can see the younger versions of him peeking out, and this is one of those times. There’s the boy who kissed her any chance he could take one perfect summer, there’s the boy who sat beside her on the bathroom floor while two lines appeared on one pregnancy test after another, there’s the man who held her up when her legs were always one wave of pain away from giving up, there’s the man who sat beside her on the floor of his parents’ garage and told her about his fantasies of forever, and there’s the one who has barely left her side these past five years. Tessa has loved them all and getting to see him finally meet Katie makes her feel like her heart has taken flight and all the love she has is pouring out of her.

When Katie lets go of Scott she smiles at her with this look that’s somehow shy and confident all at once, and Tessa is just in awe that she’s so happy to be here with them, hugging them, that she wants to see them again. She wants to hold her again, but that’s up to Katie, it’s not Tessa’s place to initiate anything.

“Katie, darling, if you’re ready, would you mind heading out ahead of me? I’d just like a moment with Tessa and Scott.” Tessa looks over at Laura who seems so genuinely happy at what’s happening, and her grace kind of amazes her. She doesn’t know how she would handle her daughter meeting her biological parents.

“Yeah, sure.” Katie turns back to them and shuffles her feet a little, “I’ll see you again soon.”

She hugs them both again and for the first time that evening Tessa feels something approaching sadness at just how natural it feels for Scott to take her hand in his across Katie’s back, as though this isn’t the first time she’s slotted in between them, but it lasts for half a breath before all she can feel is happiness.

Laura comes closer to them as Katie leaves, she puts her arms out towards Tessa as if to hug her and asks, “Is this okay?”

Tessa puts her arms around her, and the strange thing is that it doesn’t feel strange at all. There’s something right and comforting about it. Laura is wearing some perfume that reminds Tessa of when she was little and used to spray all of her nana’s perfumes and dance around as her nana laughed. Shalimar? Mitsouko?

Laura hugs Scott then and wipes her eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you two.”

Tessa leans in to him and he draws her close, rooting her. “You don’t have to thank us, if anything we should be…”

“No, I do. I’ve been so… worried about this. I had always thought you seemed great, when we read the files back then. And then the little I knew from when we knew who you were, but… I didn’t know what you’d be like with Katie, or how she’d respond to you.” Laura starts moving her hands as she speaks, “She loves people, she’s so good with them, but sometimes she overthinks and I was worried she wouldn’t be able to say what she wanted, or that she wouldn’t feel at ease, but you… you were so good with her.”

“We, uh, we really wanted to do this right,” Scott says. She strokes her thumb up and down his side where her hand is resting.

“I could tell,” Laura smiles.

“It was really lovely watching you two together. I, um, I didn’t know what that would feel like for me,” her voice drops off as she speaks and Scott somehow holds her closer. “But it was so good. So, so good.”

Katie and Laura were so in synch, so similar. They’d had the exact same expressions on their faces, like they’d wanted the ground to swallow them whole, when Laura had told them that _Carmen_ was her favourite programme of theirs. They inclined their heads the same way, they both fidgeted with their hands, they seemed to take the same kind of breath before they said something that scared them. It had been so obvious how close they were, how Katie relied on her and Laura was just there with exactly what she needed.

“You were meant to be her mom.” She believes that. If Laura wasn’t her mom then Katie wouldn’t be Katie.

“Oh, Tessa,” Laura sobs, and then takes her free hand and then Scott’s. “I should thank you for that too, for choosing us.”

“We put a lot of thought into it, we spent so long discussing all the files we read, but in the end it was an easy decision.” Scott takes a breath, “It’s like Tess said, you were meant to be a family.”

Laura hugs them and they fit themselves around her almost as easily as they had fit themselves around Katie. “I’m so looking forward to getting to know the two of you better,” she says.

After she lets go of them she gets her phone out of her purse, “Could I get your numbers so we can arrange when we’ll see you next?”

“Sure,” Tessa takes the phone and starts typing. “Scott will be travelling on and off for the next while but you should be free towards the end of the month, right?” She knows his schedule for the next few months by heart, but she probably shouldn’t just lock them into things.

“Yeah, it will probably have to be a weekend though.”

“Oh yes, you’re based in Montréal.” Laura grimaces. “Sorry, I feel bad about knowing all this, especially because you didn’t know nearly as much about us.”

“It’s natural that you wanted to know more,” Tessa assures her. Maybe a little unsettling, but she gets it.

“She’s your daughter, you want to know who she’s meeting with,” Scott agrees.

“Yes.” She looks down at her watch, “We should probably be going actually, she has school tomorrow and she probably has homework to do.”

There’s one more thing Tessa should say, or try to say. “Thank you, for…” she feels the tears start to well up again, “for everything.”

Laura hugs her again and whispers, “You have given me the greatest gift.” Tessa has been at peace with her choice for quite some time, but it’s only now that she can see the beauty of it.

Laura leaves then and the door hasn’t even shut before Scott has her in his arms. It’s like their pre-competition hugs except tighter. They stay like that for a few moments, his heartbeat feeding into her chest until she can’t separate it from her own.

“You were amazing, Tess.” His voice is right in her ear. “So selfless, you just give and give.” She doesn’t usually think of herself that way, she thought she was selfish for continuing with the pregnancy at some points, and selfish for choosing adoption at others. He moves his head from the crook of her neck to place his forehead on hers. “I’m so proud of you. I’m so grateful that I get to… that I’m the one…” He opens his eyes, “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” It feels so incredible to say it, to hear him say it, and know for sure that they mean it the same way – always. “I couldn’t have done this without you. Scott, you were so great with her. When you made her laugh… That was one of those things I wondered about, you know, what was her laugh like? And I thought I’d never hear it, and I got to hear you make her laugh and it was just the best feeling.”

He laughs, “Yeah, it was.” His voice becomes serious, awestruck even, “She hugged us, Tessa. We got to hold her. You finally got to hold her.”

He wipes her tears so gently. She kisses his cheek. “You got to see her.”

“I did. She’s so like you, I couldn’t get over it at first.”

“She’s like you too, though. Those Moir eyes and… something about the shape of her face. I’d have known her anywhere.” She’d always wondered if she’d seen her before, if she’d walked past her sometime and never realised, and now she’s so glad this was how they met because if she had seen Katie on the street somewhere she would have recognised her instantly.

“Me too.” He rubs his hand up and down her back.

There’s a knock at the door, it must be Vera. Scott lets go of her, looking a bit reluctant about it, before standing back at her side and putting his arm around her.

Vera comes in smiling. “How are you two? Katie and Laura had great things to say about how everything went.”

“She’s wonderful,” Tessa says. “They both are.”

“It was…” Scott shakes his head, “so special. To see her, to get to spend time with her?”

“And you’re going to meet up again soon?” Vera looks so genuinely happy for them.

“Yes. I can’t quite… I hadn’t thought about seeing her past this. I knew I wanted to but…”

“I think that was a healthy way of looking at things.” Vera is probably right. “You can decide what you want your relationship to look like with Katie and Laura together now, I’ll still be here for any support you need in navigating that, or to put you in contact with people, but it’s between the four of you now.”

“You’ve been so patient these past few days, and you’ve always been such a great help to us. I’m so glad it was you that took our case back then.”

Scott squeezes her close to him and nods.

“Thank you, Tessa.” Vera pauses. “You were… it was a privilege to work with the two of you, with people who were so committed. I, I’m truly happy that I got to see you all meet again.” She says this a little stiffly, but it’s not insincere, more like she’s being very careful about what she says.

Tessa hugs her then, followed by Scott, and they thank her again and tell her they’ll speak with her soon.

When they leave the room it’s like she’s seeing her surroundings for the first time.

“The walls and carpet are both mustard?!” They’re horrendous, she really must have been so overcome with everything if she hadn’t noticed.

“Real romantic place to declare that you want to be with me, Tess.” He turns her around so that she’s facing him, chest nearly touching chest, and the grin on his face almost makes her heart stop.

“I’m sorry,” she feels him stiffen, “not about telling you!! About… landing it on you right before we went in. There was already so much going on and…”

“Tessa,” he lifts her face up, “thank you. It was what I needed. Knowing that we were going to be together, no matter what happened...”

“I wanted you to never have to wonder about that.” She inches closer to him and rests her cheek against his.

They sway together a little. “I really, really want to kiss you right now, but as much as I’m a fan of kissing you in hallways, this one is truly hideous, and I don’t know how Vera would feel about walking in on that.”

She honks, a full-on goose honk, and says, “Let’s go home.”

He takes her hand in his and they make their way to the elevator.

“I had no clue what to say when Katie asked if we were dating,” he says as he presses the button.

“At least you managed to come up with something! I couldn’t exactly say we’d been emotionally dating since… I don’t know, after PyeongChang maybe, and officially together for about half an hour.”

“Is emotionally dating an actual thing or is it just something Madi came up with?” he ponders.

“That’s a good question. Did she use it on you too?”

They go outside and he starts swinging their joined hands back and forth as they walk. “Yeah, the day before I left for France.”

“I guess we can ask her.” He’s smiling so wide and keeps looking at her and then down at their hands and she can’t look at him or she’ll just end up making out with him in the middle of the street. “We still have so many things to ask Katie. I feel like I know her now, but I don’t really know all that much about her. What music does she like? What’s her favourite subject at school?”

“We get to know those things now.” He squeezes her hand and then keeps swinging it as they talk about what she might like and dislike as they head towards her apartment.

She’d been hoping to get upstairs as fast as humanly possible but Martin’s the security man at the door and she always stops to talk to him. Scott rubs circles into her palm with his thumb faster and faster as they listen to him tell them about his daughter’s princess birthday party.

When they get away Scott leads her to the stairs and says, “It will be quicker than the elevator.”

He’s taking the stairs two at a time, making these big, bounding steps, his hand still locked in hers, and she has to remind him that she’s in heels and can’t quite keep up.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, Tess.” He’s so contrite over something so small.

He slows his pace then but he’s still fizzing, and she is too. When they get to the landing between the first and second stories he lifts her up and twirls her across to the second set of stairs and she laughs into his neck.

When they finally get to her door and she’s rooting around her bag for her keys, she gets a little distracted by the sight of the folder of photos Laura gave them, the pieces of Katie’s life they get to take home with them. She looks up and is surprised to see Scott so nervous.

She reaches out to touch his face. “Are you okay?”

“This is it, Tessa.” His hand is _shaking_ as he tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

“It is,” she says simply and presses the softest of kisses to his lips.

He kisses her back, equally as soft at first, but then he puts his arms around her and draws her so close, and, oh, _this_ , this is what it feels like to kiss the person you’ve been wanting to kiss but couldn’t for sixteen years. He still kisses her like it’s all he wants to do in life, with that purpose he brings to protecting her, to skating, to everything. He smells different now, not like drugstore deodorant but like the cologne she started buying for him at Christmas 2018, the one that makes her want to lick his neck (she can do that now). It’s a little messy (they bump noses searching for a better angle), it’s a little desperate (it’s been sixteen fucking years), and it definitely gets a little provocative for an apartment block hallway when his hands move down to her ass and she rolls her hips into his. It’s like she can taste how much he’s wanted this, taste how he kissed her at seventeen all confidence and trust, taste how he wanted to kiss her at 26 all longing and loss, taste how he’s kissing her now at 34 all certainty and promise. All certainty and promise because this is it.

“Tess, should we maybe go inside?” he asks in between deep breaths when they pause for air.

She nods, words are hard. She’s glad he spoke first because she was halfway to coming out with something silly like ‘I’m never going to kiss anyone else for the rest of my life.’

She starts looking for her keys again and finds them almost as soon as she reaches into her bag.

She’s barely shut the door before he’s kissing her again and she backs him against the wall as his hands return to her hair.

His stomach rumbles and they break apart laughing.

He starts peppering kisses on her face that she tries to dodge. “We need to feed you!”

“Don’t need food, just need to kiss you.”

She giggles like she’s fifteen again (feels giddy like it too) and shakes her head. “You haven’t eaten all day! I need to take care of you.”

She takes his hand and leads him towards the kitchen. He puts his arms around her shoulders and walks right behind her, asking, “What are you going to make for me, poached eggs?”

“You know I can cook more than that! I’m… basically competent in a kitchen now.” She’d picked some things up during all the time she spent watching him cook in Montréal.

She opens the fridge and, yeah, eggs are looking like a solid option.

“Omelettes maybe? To spice things up.” He places a kiss on the top of her head.

“Perfect.” She skims her hands over her navy dress. “Maybe we should get changed first?”

“Good idea.”

She closes the fridge door and he removes his arms from around her. She turns around and when she sees his face he looks endearingly put-out about the fact that they’re going to be parted for about two minutes (it’s extra endearing because she feels the same).

She kisses his cheek and heads to her room. She wonders whether she should wear her normal lounging around her apartment with Scott clothes or something a bit more… revealing maybe? But then Helen had basically told her in the most non-directive way possible on their phone session yesterday not to jump straight into bed with him right after meeting Katie and she thinks that was a decent point (then again, they had been working off the idea that she wouldn’t have told him how she felt before then, she hadn’t thought she’d be able to until it happened). She figures leggings and a low-cut sweater might combine the best of both options.

She checks her phone and there are three missed calls from Jordan so she phones back and puts her on loudspeaker while she steps out of her heels and undoes her zipper.

“Tess, are you okay? Did it… how are you feeling?” She sounds so worried.

“Good… great even.”

“Oh, thank God. I was wondering how long it would go on for, and was it a bad or a good thing we hadn’t heard from you, and Mom keeps texting every five minutes, and I kind of think she, Alma, and Joe have started drinking, do the Moirs only do moonshine during the summer or is that like a year-round thing?”

“She’s with Alma and Joe?”

Her voice gets a little muffled as she pulls the red sweater over her head but Jordan seems to understand. “Yeah, I think they only decided earlier today, and from the way her spelling has deteriorated I think she’s probably staying the night.”

“We’ll call them after I talk to you then.”

“Sure, I won’t keep you, just…” Jordan’s voice gets soft, “What is she like?”

“She’s… amazing. You can just tell that she’s kind, and smart, and oh, she’s so beautiful.”

“Well, yeah, she’s working with some pretty stellar genetic material.”

“She looks like I did back then, but she has Scott’s eyes.” She picks up the phone, turns off loudspeaker, and puts it to her ear. “She hugged us, Jordan, she wants to see us again.”

“Oh, Tess. I’m so… I’m so happy for you.”

“Me too, I’m so happy too.” It almost feels like a dream, all hazy at the edges.

“And Scott? How is he feeling?”

“Oh, he’s great, I don’t know when I last saw him like this.”

There must be something in the way she says it because Jordan picks up on it right away. “Oh my God, what happened between you?”

“What makes you think something happened?”

“Tess- _a_.”

That tone brings her right back to after their first first kiss when she’d come back from Junior Worlds and Jordan had pounced on her with questions about Scott just about the second she’d seen her. They’d talked about keeping it quiet for a while but she’d cracked after a few minutes of cross-examination.

“Before-we-went-in-I-told-him-that-I-loved-him-and-that-I-wanted-to-be-with-him-and-he-told-me-he-felt-the-same-way-and-then-when-we-got-back-home-we-kissed-and-I-think-it-was-the-best-kiss-of-my-life.”

She takes a breath and starts to repeat all that but Jordan cuts her off by screeching, “OH MY GOD. OH MY FUCKING GOD. Shit, I’m going to wake Owen and he’s finally on something approaching a sleep schedule. TESSA! You met Katie, and you’re back together and making out with Scott Moir like it’s 2005? This is like the best day ever for you!”

She laughs, “Yeah, it pretty much is.”

“Okay, I’ll go check on my kid, you go make him a cousin or something.”

“ _Jordan_!” They had just met the child they placed for adoption, how on earth did she think that was appropriate?

“Too soon?”

“Definitely too soon!”

“Fair, I’ve never been the funny one. Go… actually, first ring Mom, and then do whatever you want and are ready for.”

“Okay, love you.”

“Love you, Tess. Bye!”

When she goes back to the kitchen Scott is already cooking. She puts her arms around him and kisses his shoulder. He smells like him and the fabric softener she’d introduced him to back when they were all but living together in Montréal.

“Sorry, I had all these missed calls from Jordan so I had to phone her back.”

He lifts his arm and she curls into his side. “I was just thinking we should call our moms.”

“That’s what Jordan was calling about, they’re together, she says they might be drunk but that’s probably just her being ridiculous.” Though if her mom was misspelling things…

“Do you want to call them while I finish getting these ready?” He kisses her temple and then she kisses his lips because she can.

Her mom picks up very quickly and sounds totally normal. “Tessa, how are you? I just heard from Jordan that things went well?”

“I’m good, Mom, it went so well.”

“I’ll put you on loudspeaker so Alma and Joe can hear, and you can do the same so we can hear Scott. Actually! How about FaceTime? Do you like FaceTime, Alma? I think it’s great.” Okay, maybe Jordan was right.

“Sure, Mom, FaceTime would be good. I’m going to hang up now and call you back, okay?”

She raises her eyebrows at Scott as he puts their dinner plates on the counter. “So, Jordan might have been right.” He laughs. “She’s had at least two glasses of wine. I can talk to them for a bit while you eat.”

He pulls out a stool for her, “Tess, I’ve been with you most of the day and you haven’t eaten either. We’ve talked to them while eating before, they’re used to it.”

The omelette does look delicious. She sits down beside him and rings her mom.

Her and Alma’s faces fill the screen when she picks up until she adjusts it so they can see they’re in the living room of the Moirs’ house.

“It’s so good to see you two!” Alma smiles. “Your dad is here too, Scott, he just doesn’t want to be on camera.”

“Hi Tessa! Hi Scott!” comes Joe’s disembodied voice from somewhere else in the room.

“Scott, you look tired, did you use those sleeping pills I told you about?” Tessa tries not to laugh.

“Yes, I slept the whole flight. I brought some home for you.”

“Oh, Scott.” Her mom is tearing up and if this is what talking about sleeping pills does to her Tessa doesn’t know how she’s going to tell her about meeting Katie (she knows there’s more to it than that).

Their moms tell them they want the whole story from the start so Tessa begins. It flows so easily, she remembers everything so clearly – Katie’s face when they entered the room, Scott’s shock at seeing her that she could feel through his hand in hers, the awkwardness when no one knew what to say. When she’s describing Katie she tries to look at both of them, but there’s a part of her that wants to share this with Alma alone, to tell her all about the girl the baby they had both loved is now. But her mom is ready to listen now too and Tessa can’t deny her this after everything.

They’d finally really talked about it, the pregnancy, over the summer. With her brothers busy with their families and Jordan busy preparing for her baby to arrive Tessa was the only one who could devote her full energy to caring for her mom when she got sick. Maybe she felt like she owed it to her as well, after all she’d done during the pregnancy and after. This time it was Tessa keeping track of appointments, driving her mom around, organising what pills she should take and when. Alma had visited often and it had really been the first time all three of them had been together on their own since the birth. One time after Alma had left she’d finally asked her mom why she’d been so cold with her towards the end, and her mom had told her that maybe it was a lot of things, but a big part of it was jealousy.

“You were my baby girl, Tessa, the others… Your brothers had each other, and Jordan was her own person from the start, but you were mine. And it was so unbelievably hard because you were my baby, but then you were having a baby yourself, and… I couldn’t give you what you needed but Alma could, and I knew I should be grateful for that but I couldn’t be, because I thought that no matter what happened, what choice you made, I would lose you.”

Knowing all this makes it easier to understand her mom back then, but there are some things she’s still not sure she’s forgiven her for. She still dreams about it sometimes, lying on her bed in the cottage wishing Scott was with her, or the two of them sitting on the couch with nothing to say to one another, her mom always in the background, an evil fairy at a christening. But he’s here with her now, his arm around her, and it mightn’t make up for the past, but it’s enough.

She and Scott take turns speaking and he has to take over entirely when they get to the point when Katie asked why she continued with the pregnancy. She starts crying then, she thinks their moms have been crying the whole time. Scott cries too when they tell them about how she wants to see them again, how they got to hold her.

After they’ve all calmed down a little (and their moms have shared a significant glance when Scott kissed her hair), Alma says, “I’d love to see those photos of Katie.”

“We could go up and visit you tomorrow before Scott leaves!”

She probably replies much too quickly, “Scott and I will be busy tomorrow.”

“Busy?” her mom repeats.

“We’re going skating, and…”

“I think we need some time to, uh, process things by ourselves.”

“Oh, of course, we can see them another time.” Her mom’s scarf has come a little askew with all the nodding she’s doing and Tessa can see the way her hair is starting to grow back curly.

“You could come and see me Wednesday evening, all of you, and we can FaceTime Scott in.”

“You won’t be able to do as much processing when you’re not together,” Alma says, and Tessa almost dies. “It’s easier to talk about these things in person.”

She can feel Scott relax, “You’re so right, Mom. It’s getting late, we should let you go to bed.”

“You’re not driving home now, are you, Mom?”

“No, darling, I’m going to stay here tonight.”

“Because it’s late,” Alma supplies.

“Yes,” her mom nods seriously. “Because it’s late.” Tessa can see the two empty wine bottles on the kitchen table through the open living room door.

“You two need your rest, too,” says Alma. “Today must have been so draining for you both.”

She supposes she is tired, but she’s also so hyped up that she can’t imagine sleeping any time soon.

“We’ll talk to you soon,” she tells them, and they say good night.

When they hang up Scott turns to face her with this stupid grin on his face, “So, we’re going to be busy tomorrow?”

“Busy processing.” She leans in and kisses him.

“I can’t wait,” he whispers in her ear, and it leaves her biting her lip.

“We should clean up the plates.” She collects them and he gets all his preparation material (he seems to use much fewer items than she does and yet the result is so much better).

She starts filling the sink and the suds remind her of a photo of a tiny Katie in a bath from the file. “We didn’t get to look at all the pictures earlier! I got distracted by the one that looked so like me, and then we started talking.”

“We could look at them when we finish up here,” he suggests as he starts drying.

After they put everything away in the cupboards he helped her organise when she first moved in she gets the file from her purse and they sit down on the couch and look through the photos together.

It’s not as intense now because they know they don’t have to give the images back, and they know that this won’t be their only chance to see her in person either.

There are photos of her first day at school, lots of photos with her mom and some with her dad, photos of her taken in places all around the world. It’s like they’re watching her grow up on warp speed, pigtails to ponytails to plaits. She wants to know everything there is to know about Katie, but that’s not really her place, so she will embrace whatever Katie and her mom are willing to share.

Scott squeezes her arm. “She’s had a great life.”

“Like us, we’ve had a great life, too.” Not the easiest life, or always the happiest, but great nonetheless.

“We should go to Greece,” Scott says after they’ve looked through them all, picking up a picture of Katie in front of the Acropolis. “Just the two of us. Go to Athens and then the islands.”

They’ve never gone on a trip on their own, and the possibility of it all is electric. “And what would we do on the islands?”

Scott puts the photo down and closes the file on the coffee table. He takes her chin in his hand and traces the outline of her lower lip. “I hadn’t really got past the idea of you in a bikini on the beach.”

“I could… I could get on board with that.” She leans in and kisses him. He’s more forward now, he would never have said something like that when they were younger, and he certainly wouldn’t have snaked his hand under her sweater and started stroking his thumb softly and slowly up and down her stomach so soon.

She shifts her leg and settles herself down on his lap. The closeness is almost overwhelming, it’s no closer physically than they are on the ice but it’s so different here on her couch with no one else watching, with no cold air to bring her to her senses. He puts his other hand in her hair and moves his mouth from her lips to her neck, feeling her breaths getting faster, her pulse quickening.

“I love your hair,” he tells her in between kisses.

“I know you do.” He had told her all the time back then. “Do you – do you like it this colour?”

“I liked it every colour.” He says that so softly, and then his voice gets lower and scratchier. “I love how soft it is. I was obsessed with that when we were younger, how it felt when we were together, like I was touching you everywhere.”

His thumb has moved from tracing her abs to tracing the cup of her bra and she doesn’t want to stop but she thinks that maybe they should.

“Scott… can we… pause a second?”

He immediately starts removing his hand from under her sweater but she stops him and holds it at her waist.

“I think… we shouldn’t just…”

“Jump into things straight away?”

“Just not tonight. We only met Katie today, you know?” She has this nagging thought that it’s disrespectful or uncaring or something to just… go at it like rabbits right after meeting her, right after finally telling each other they want to be together. There’s a nasty voice in her head telling her that being so caught up in Scott when she should be thinking about Katie is a clear sign she wasn’t fit to be her mother, and while she knows this isn’t rational some thoughts are harder to let go of than others.

He cradles her face in his hands. “Tessa, what is it?”

“I know it’s that I’m emotional and tired after everything but…” She leans into his hand as he wipes her tears. “I feel guilty for wanting to be with you after meeting her, like maybe this isn’t how I’m meant to feel?”

“I don’t think there’s any way we’re meant to feel. And… Katie’s here because we loved each other. We didn’t raise her, but we’re still the reason she’s here. I used to feel so guilty about us being together when you were so young, of not taking care of you like I should have, but I don’t anymore. We loved each other, and we made an awesome kid, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be together like that again.”

She nuzzles her head into his shoulder. “I love you.” Maybe she should say more than that, but for now it’s all she has.

“I love you, too.” He strokes her hair, “Tess, we don’t need to rush anything. We’ve got time.” She smiles, and he continues, “We can wait for days, or weeks, or months…”

She bursts out laughing and lifts her head. “Months?! Here I was thinking how much you’ve changed from 2005 when I had to beg you to put your hands under my shirt and you’re talking about waiting for months?”

“I mean, it’s not my ideal scenario, but if that’s what you were comfortable with..."

She kisses him softly. “I love you, and you’re incredibly sweet, but that is ridiculous. I was talking about waiting until _tomorrow_.”

He swallows. “Tomorrow is good. I like tomorrow.”

“You’ll be back in Montréal after that.” She doesn’t mean to sound so sad, she’d hate to make him feel bad about going back.

“You could come visit me at the weekend though, we don’t need to hurry.”

She smooths down some of his hair that she must have rumpled. “I was already planning on visiting you then. That’s when I was going to tell you how I felt, before we got that call from Vera.”

“Your plan was always faster moving than mine then.”

“You had a plan?!”

He raises his eyebrows to a location in between amusement and offence. “Of course I had a plan, Tessa. This is the rest of our lives, I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

“What was this plan then?” Her voice is definitely as smoky to him as it sounds to her judging from the way his eyes darken.

“Well, I had to put it on hold when your mom got sick, but I was thinking I could put it into action soon enough now that she’s doing better. I was going to ask you to do couples therapy with me, real couples therapy, to explore whether we could be together.”

Apparently Scott planning things works as an aphrodisiac for her because her hips start circling into his seemingly on autopilot. For a second or two he pulls her closer and she can feel him getting hard through his sweatpants and her thin leggings, he moans into her ear and she’s rethinking all her good, sensible intentions when he lifts her up and gently sets her down on the couch beside him.

He adjusts his pants, frowning slightly. “Okay, so this is very 2005.”

She reaches her hand out, “Do you want me to…”

He interlaces their fingers together and rests their hands on her thigh. “That sounds… yeah, but…” He raises his head so that he’s looking straight into her eyes, “We’ve been waiting for this for so long, I want to come inside you, not in your hand.”

Fuck. “Yes. I want… that.”

He kisses her, much too softly for what they’ve been discussing, but maybe that’s a good thing because if he kissed her the way she wants him to there is no earthly way they wouldn’t end up having sex right now on the couch. She could try and distract herself. Should she get a new, non-white couch if they’re going to have a tonne of sex on it? She should at least get some throws.

He rests his head on her shoulder and she notices his eyelids starting to droop. “You should get some sleep.”

“I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling the time difference now.”

“It’s been a long day.” She puts her arms around him.

“An amazing day.”

“Yes.” She kisses his head. “The best.” They sit like that for a little while before she asks, “Do you want to stay in the spare room tonight?”

He looks up at her and grins, “You afraid you won’t be able to resist me if we share a bed?”

“Yes! I don’t know why you’re laughing, this is a very real issue!”

He gets up then and tenderly pulls her up into his arms. “I’ll see you in the morning, Tessa.”

She tells him she loves him and they say good night.

The separate beds thing seems like a great idea right up until she’s about to climb into her big, empty bed. This is so stupid. She’s not going to get to sleep knowing that he’s right down the hall and she could be in his arms. They’re not teenagers anymore, they can control themselves around one another. They’re only going to have one more night after this until he goes back to Montréal, and they’ll be snatching time together for the next few months. There’s no point in wasting this.

She’s wearing another Moir Skate Shop t-shirt (a real example of the ones Cara sent her this time) and this makes her smile as she knocks on the door. It takes him a minute to answer and she worries that he’s already asleep.

“You’re awake,” she says when he opens the door and rubs his eyes.

“Possibly. This is a recurring dream of mine.” Him shirtless and staring at her like she’s all he’s ever wanted is a frequent night-time fantasy of hers so maybe she’s actually asleep too.

“That’s kind of why I’m here.” It’s probably going to sound so sappy, but Scott likes that. “I don’t want to have to wake up tomorrow morning and wonder if it was all a dream. I want to wake up with you beside me.”

He surges forward and lifts her up, pressing his lips to hers, quickly deepening the kiss.

“We’re going to go to sleep. You shouldn’t kiss me like that if you want me to go to sleep.”

He kisses her with the smallest amount of pressure. “Can I kiss you like that?”

“Yeah,” she answers, her hand over his heart, “you can kiss me like that.”

She leads him to her room and he keeps leaving kisses on the side of her head.

When they climb into bed he mumbles something about whether she wants him to stay over on his side. She closes her arms around him and settles her head on his chest.

“Is this okay?”

“Perfect.” He holds her closer and her eyes flutter shut.

She’s not sure how much rest she actually gets, drifting in and out of consciousness without being really sure if she’s awake or dreaming. She places drowsy kisses on his chest and the steady beat underneath her lips lulls her back to sleep. She thinks he might be feeling the same way because sometimes she feels kisses in her hair or his fingers moving up and down her back. At one point she thinks they end up kissing, together somewhere between wakefulness and slumber.

When she wakes up properly it’s to him rubbing circles on her arm and her legs tangled around one of his.

“Good morning,” she yawns.

The early morning sun is seeping through the white curtains and his hair is catching the rays. He smiles, “Not a dream, Tess.”

No, it isn’t. His chest is solid under her palm and his thigh is strong between hers, and when she kisses him it’s wonderfully real.

She’s in his arms, the sun is shining, and she doesn’t want to wait for anything anymore. They deserve this, they deserve to be together and to be happy.

“Do you want to…”

His eyes widen so she thinks he knows what she’s talking about, but just to be sure she rubs against his thigh. He grips her t-shirt with one hand and her leg so tightly with the other that it might bruise.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

“Yes.” She kisses him, nipping his lower lip with her teeth when she draws back. She feels him getting hard against her leg.

He throws off the covers. “I want to see you.”

Suddenly, she feels self-conscious, he hasn’t seen her naked in so long. “Just to remind you, uh, I’m not sixteen anymore.”

He gives her an easy smile, “Well, thank God for that, or else I’d be some dirty old man.”

She laughs, and maybe it’s a little too loud for this early in the morning but it seems to delight him. She turns so that she’s lying on her back and takes his hands and places them on the hem of her t-shirt. “I want you to take it off.”

He eases it slowly up her chest, his fingers trailing in its wake. He’s careful not to snag her hair when he pulls it over her head.

He’s staring at her, and some saying about the body being a temple comes to mind because he looks like he’s here to worship.

“ _Tessa_.” She wonders if the female body is capable of orgasm without being touched. “You’re so beautiful.” His voice is all wonder and want. “So fucking gorgeous. I love you so much.”

She manages to breathe out, “You, too,” before he slowly passes his finger across her collarbone, down the valley between her breasts, and then circles it around one breast and then the other. He follows his finger with his tongue and then drags it over her abs and down to her belly button piercing, his hands now mapping out her chest, the skin of his fingers perfectly rough against her nipples. She’s caught between luxuriating in all of this, how loose and liquid it makes her feel, and wanting him to go faster, faster. She’s been waiting a goddamn lifetime.

She buries her hands in his hair and it’s insane that she’s thinking about her sister as Scott licks the silver ball, but Jordan’s demand that she keep it to show off how toned she still was is clearly the most sensible thing she’s ever uttered.

“This drove me wild when you first got it, still does.”

She’d got it during their first senior season when she was finally somewhat happy with how her abs were defined, after she’d lost the baby weight and got back in shape. She remembers how his hand had stopped when he’d first felt it through her top. His jaw had tightened and he removed his hand so fast she’d thought for sure he didn’t approve. It had taken her quite some time to figure out that wasn’t the problem at all.

She’s trying to tell him that when he moves down to her hip and then starts slipping her underwear down her legs, kissing all her scars before he finally takes them off. He kisses his way back up her legs then and it’s obvious what he’s intending to do next.

“Scott, stop.”

He raises his head, “Sorry –“

“It’s not… remember last night when you said you didn’t want to come in my hand? I- I want you inside me. Now.” Jesus, she sounds so needy.

He rolls over onto his side and she mirrors him. “Tess, babe,” and fuck, but hearing him call her babe does things to her, “I’m not going to last. I haven’t had sex in so long, and this is _you_ , we’re going to be lucky if it’s two minutes.”

“I don’t care. I just want it be to you and me.” She’s so wound up it’s not like it will take long for her either.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she says firmly, and then puts her hands on the waistband of his boxer briefs for good measure.

He nods and she takes them off with a lot less caution than he removed her underwear.

“Shit, Tessa, you have condoms, right?”

“Don’t need them. I have an IUD so we don’t need to worry about… and I’m pretty sure I’ve been tested more recently than I’ve had sex.” Maybe she shouldn’t have assumed he had been getting regular tests as well…

“Me too, I might even have been tested twice since I’ve had sex.”

Of course he has. She strokes his hair, “Um, I’ve actually never had sex without a condom.”

“Me either.”

“What? But… you had all those long-term girlfriends.” Had none of them been on the pill or an IUD?

“Yeah, they, uh, would have been fine with it, but…”

She knew he had felt guilty about her getting pregnant, but she didn’t think it had dogged him this much.

“Scott, we can go and get some, it’s fine. We don’t have to take any chances.”

“It wasn’t just that, Tess.” He grazes his nose along the side of hers. “I only ever wanted to be close like that, uh… only with you.”

“ _Oh_.” He’s so close that she doesn’t know who’s breathing in who. “Oh. I- I never… yeah, me too.”

“It will be a first time for both of us.” He lifts her hand and kisses it.

“I’m ready,” she says softly, and that must have been what she said to him that night in Canton because his eyes get kind of misty.

She kisses him as he enters her and it’s brand new but familiar too. She wonders if he’s bigger now, is that possible? It feels like the world is stilling. She’d always thought people had to have been exaggerating how much better sex was without a condom, and maybe it’s just because this is Scott, or that’s she’s been wanting this for so long, but it really does feel so much better, so much more intense. Maybe it’s not the lack of a physical barrier at all, maybe it’s the lack of all other barriers, now that there’s nothing holding them apart.

“Good?” she asks, a little breathless.

He opens his eyes. “Incredible. I… I overestimated how long I would last, it probably won’t even be a minute, I could come right now.” He sounds so sheepish.

“We’ve got time,” she reminds him, and he smiles. She raises her leg to rest over his hip, humming as she eases him in deeper.

“Fuck, Tess,” he screws his eyes shut again, “I’m going to die, I’m actually going to die like this.”

She laughs, “Please don’t! I…” She doesn’t have the wherewithal to come up with anything witty in response.

He kisses her on the cheek and then on her lips. “I love you so much.”

“You feel amazing,” she breathes out, and it surprises her that she says this out loud.

“Yeah?” he asks.

She nods, and then he starts to move. It’s soft and slow and it makes her ache for who they once were and exult that here they are as one again. No one’s ever looked at her like this, not even him back when they were young. He’s rocking into her like she’s everything to him, and she’s meeting him with that same love, and it’s beautiful, she thinks.

“I’ve wanted this for so long.” He’s running his fingers through her hair now.

“I know, I have too, Scott. I never stopped.”

He puts his hand in between them and his thumb is on her clit and he’s moving it the exact right way that he had back then.

“You remember,” her breaths are getting shorter and his thrusts are getting more erratic.

“Of course. I remember everything.”

It doesn’t quite have the same effect now, but he seems to figure that out without having to be told and switches to a new rhythm.

She starts babbling as the waves come closer and closer - about how much she loves him, needs him, has always and will always. She starts tearing up, which might be embarrassing if he wasn’t crying too. She buries her head in his shoulder and tells him how happy they’re going to be, that she’s never letting him go again, that they’re going to be together for the rest of their lives.

It’s a different cry she makes then as she shatters and falls and he catches her and puts her back together.

He comes right after she does, saying her name over and over again.

She’s doing the laugh-cry thing he loves so much except this time he’s doing it too and it really is the best sound she’s ever heard.

He starts to pull out but she hugs him to her, “No, stay.”

He starts leaving kisses all over her face, “Whatever you want, Tessa, whatever you want for the rest of our lives.”

She feels herself go red, “Was the babbling weird? I never talk during sex.”

He laughs, and then sees her expression. “You’re serious?!”

“Yes! I mean, I didn’t with… did I talk back then?”

His smile is so impossibly fond. “You never shut up. Why do you think I wouldn’t agree to sneak into that apartment you were living in with your mom?”

“Oh God, was it annoying?”

He runs his fingers down her cheek. “Not at all. I loved it. I used to think about it all the time.”

“I guess I was more focused on what you were doing… I do remember that you liked it when I said your name.”

“Yeah, I liked that a lot.” She wants him smiling at her like this all the time.

He used to tell her how beautiful she was, and she thinks that being with him like that were some of the few times she did feel beautiful back then.

He runs his hand down her arm. “Tess, should we get cleaned up? Do you still want to go skating this morning or…”

She’d forgotten all about the ice time she’d booked for them, and as much as she’d like them to stay here in her room forever she finds the idea of skating with him very tempting. If having sex with Scott is her favourite physical activity, skating with him comes in at a very respectable second place. Whoever said you shouldn’t sleep with your ice dance partner hadn’t seen them training that summer, or at their JGP events, and Tessa wants to experience that again.

“I think I’d like to go, if that’s okay with you.”

He kisses her. “I’ll always want to skate with you.”

He kisses her in the shower, he kisses her in the elevator, he kisses her in the car as they drive to the rink.

She kisses him on the ice and he teases her, “What happened to professionalism, Tessa? You never let me kiss you when we were practising back when we first dated.”

“We were training for competitions then! We’re retired now.”

He laughs, but he doesn’t complain about it after that.

Maybe she’s imagining things, but she feels more attuned to him now (and surely that has to be all in her head, because how could that be possible?). They’re just messing around really, playing about with songs they’ve been discussing for possible show numbers, but it feels so special, so intimate. She has always loved skating with him, even when being around him was difficult, or perhaps especially then. Skating saved them she thinks.

She mentions that to him when they’re driving back to her apartment, they’ve discussed it before but after having met Katie and deciding to be together again it feels more vital. Skating had been her safe place, her escape, the one way she could be close to him again without having to think about all that had happened, or that could have happened.

When they get back he tells her he’s going to make a big lunch because they’ll need their strength. She runs her hands down his arms and teasingly asks him if the possibility of them getting back together is why he’s stayed in such great shape and when he lowers his head, his neck reddening, she thinks that maybe it’s not all that far from the truth.

Scott washes after lunch, she dries, and it’s almost like it used to be back in Montréal except for the fact that he is one hundred per cent openly undressing her with his eyes.

He flicks suds at her when he drains the sink. “You’re all wet now.” He winks, and, God, he’s such a dork really (and it is absolutely working for her).

“That’s a terrible joke.” He laughs happily, and then he has the audacity to wipe his wet hands on her bum and down her thighs. She leans in closer, “Not untrue though.”

She takes his hand and kisses the pad of each finger slowly, all the while looking into his eyes (he’s not laughing anymore), and then guides his hand underneath leggings and lace.

“ _Tessa,_ ” he draws her name out, “what do you want?”

“You, always you.”

He slowly inserts one finger and then another. He makes this sound as he starts to circle them around, like he’s already wrecked. Her leggings are in the way and he’s moving much too slowly, she wants him closer, needs him now.

She whispers into his ear, “I only get like this with you. I got so wet just _thinking_ about you, more than I did when I was with anyone else.”

“Fuck. I want to be inside you. Can I be inside you?”

She starts pulling down his trousers, but he stops her, “Wait, I want to enjoy this first.”

He kneels, sliding her leggings and underwear down her legs as he goes, his strong fingers still moving quick then slow, quick then slow, and when he puts his mouth on her she’s almost gone.

She’d been so naïve when she was younger, had actually been surprised that the guys she was with after Scott didn’t seem as enthusiastic about this as he always had been. She hadn’t known how unusual it was for a teenage boy to be so into going down on his girlfriend, and he definitely had been into it. She remembers that look he’d have on his face when he’d lift his head up, some pride and bravado, but mainly love and want.

So few of those guys seemed to have any clue about what she wanted from this anyway, but Scott knows exactly what to do. “I’ve missed this so much,” he says, his voice all smoky, right before he switches so that it’s his tongue inside and his fingers on her clit, “that fucking lift when you were right there and all I could think of was tasting you.”

“Oh, that was hard for you?” She tugs his hair. “Imagine what it was like for me.”

“I’m going to spend the rest of our lives making up for that,” he promises as he returns his tongue to her clit and she has to grab the counter behind her for support.

She comes with one hand on her kitchen sink and the other in his hair.

Her legs are quaking afterwards and he kisses them so softly as he helps her steps out of her clothes. Before she really knows what’s going on his trousers are off too and she’s in his arms, her legs wrapping tight around his hips as he starts walking. His breath is so hot on the shell of her ear when he asks, “Where do you want to go?”

“Not going anywhere. I want you now. I want you to fuck me now. _Please_.” He shivers when she tells him that. He’s so hard and she’s not waiting another second. “You can put me on the counter, lean me against the fridge, whatever.”

“What makes you think I’d need to lean you against anything?” He has this cocky smile on, and then his face softens. “I’ve got you, Tess.”

She strokes his cheek, “I know.” He’s so strong and constant.

So, she lowers herself onto him, puts her forehead against his and says, “I trust you.” She grinds down on him and he buries his face in her neck. “I love how things were between us back then, but there are some things we didn’t do.”

He twirls a strand of her hair around one of his fingers. “What’s that, Tessa?”

How is he so calm? He’s started to thrust up to meet her but it’s so agonisingly slow. “I want…” He did seem to like it when she was a little bossy, but she thinks what she says ends up sounding more like a plea than a demand, “I want you to fuck me… Hard?”

She emphasis the words fuck and hard with her hips and after that he seems only too happy to get with the programme. Her younger self would probably have found this so unseemly, them both only half undressed, her riding him in the middle of her kitchen, but that younger self was wrong about a lot of things anyway.

He’s still so gentle with her somehow, keeps checking in, “Is this good, Tessa? I want to make you feel so good,” and the soft whisper in her ear is so different to the firm grasp his left hand has on her side and the fast pace he’s setting with his hips.

She assures him that it is, “Yes, Scott, so good,” and keeps repeating his name as her nails dig into his back.

He’s pulling at her hair and his mouth is at her neck and she knows he’s going to leave a mark on her, wants him to, wants everyone to know that she belongs to him.

She tells him as she comes that he is hers, hers, hers, that she’s always been his, and her words undo him.

She can’t quite stand afterwards and he holds her up, leaving butterfly kisses on the red spot on her neck.

When he carries her to her room she reminds him this is the first lift they ever learned, and he laughs into her neck before he lays her down.

They kiss on her bed, just kiss, for an hour and he murmurs that maybe he missed this most of all.

 

They wake up the next morning to the sound of alarms blaring from both their phones, and even though she knows they only left about twenty minutes for him to get ready before leaving for the airport (they had organised their time to maximise sleep, and more importantly the other things they did in her bed before sleeping) she can’t help clinging onto him.

She follows him as he gets dressed and throws the remaining items he didn’t pack the day before into his suitcase. Scott keeps kissing her as if he’s reassuring her he’s not gone yet.

“I’m not giving this back to you,” she tells him as he pulls slightly on the hem of the Leafs t-shirt she’s wearing.

She’d put it on when they left her bedroom to get something to eat yesterday evening. He’d been staring at it as he ate a slice of toast when he said, “I’m going to be able to see them play so much more when I’m living here next year.”

She choked a little on her water. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to come be with me! The Cricket Club job was really just a suggestion. I… I could go back to Montréal.” She does miss it, but maybe that was mostly him.

“Tess, you love your job, and Jordan’s here, and your mom’s in London, and I’d be so much closer to home, too. And…” He came closer, taking her hand in his, his voice dropping to almost a whisper, “Katie’s here.” She kissed his cheek.

“You’re sure about leaving Gadbois?”

“I’ve been thinking about wanting to head up my own programme, about having a place like Gadbois here in Ontario. Patch and Marie have been great with all the questions, they’re so encouraging about it I think they might want to get rid of me.” They have the best people in their lives, they really do.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are, you know.”

“You seem to like it all the same.” He leaned in to kiss her and if anyone else tried to do that still all butter and crumbs she would hate it, but it’s Scott.

“I guess,” she’d said with as much nonchalance as she could muster while his hands were roving up and down the sides of her body.

“You guess?!” He started tickling her then and she ran back to her room laughing the whole way.

She’d had to stop laughing when he joined her because all she could focus on was him taking the t-shirt off again and backing her towards her bed, and then the look in his eyes when he was above her telling her he loved her, gliding into her like he was coming home…

“Tessa.” He tugs on the t-shirt again. “You can’t look at me like that and expect me to get this flight.”

“Well…”

“I don’t want to go either. I’ll let you keep the t-shirt if you promise to send me pictures,” he murmurs in her ear before zipping up his suitcase.

She’s not going to argue about that.

They hold hands as they walk down the hallway and her eyes start welling with tears when they get to the door.

“I’m sorry, this is so stupid, I’m going to see you in two days.”

He envelops hers in his arms. “It’s not stupid at all. We’re finally together again.” His voice starts to break, “I don’t… I wish we never had to be apart. But it’s just going to be for the next few months, and then I’ll be here. Or, you know, close to here.”

“You’ll be living here with me, there’s no point kidding ourselves.” She takes a breath, “We can live here for a while and then maybe look for bigger places, you know, with backyards, and more bedrooms.”

“Bigger places?” he asks quietly, his face lighting up, and she knows that he understands, even if they can’t quite find the words.

She wonders if she should try and spell it out, but maybe it’s okay that she’s not quite ready for that yet. Maybe it’s better that she doesn’t tell him here at her door when he’s about to go. Maybe she can hug them to herself for a little while, these dreams she can allow herself now that they’re a real possibility. Not dreams anymore but plans, not for right now, but for later, when they’re ready.

He’s looking at her like he wants to say a thousand things before he settles on, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They kiss and she holds him as tight as she can, tries to commit every detail to memory – his hair soft in her fingers, his arms strong around her, his lips sweet and minty on hers.

“Two days, Tessa,” he reminds her when he lets go. “We’ll be together in two days.”

He kisses her gently and goes.

Seeing him leave is less painful than the thought of it was. She’s used to saying goodbye to him now and knowing they’ll be reunited soon and nothing will have changed, except now something has changed and things are even better.

She hears her phone ringing from her room and goes to get it, half-expecting it to be him.

“Tessa? This is Laura, Laura Russell? Wait, did I even give you our surname on Monday?” It’s not Scott, but it still makes her heart beat faster.

“Hi Laura, yes, you did, when we shook hands at the start?”

“Oh, of course! Sorry, I think the beginning is a bit of a blur to me now. How have you been?”

“Good, thanks, and you? Scott just left for the airport.”

“We’ve been good, too. Do you have time to talk about meeting up again? I know it’s early.”

“I have time.” She would always make time for that, and she’s not back at work until the afternoon anyway.

“Great, I think you said Scott would be travelling a bit this month? So, I was thinking maybe Saturday October 2nd?”

“That would be perfect, we already talked about him coming to Toronto that weekend.”

“Oh wonderful, that was easy!” She pauses, “I really am looking forward to getting to know you two better.”

“We are, too.”

“Katie is around, if you want to speak to her?”

“If that’s… yes, yes.”

“Okay, I’ll put her on now. Talk to you soon!” She can hear the phone being passed along.

“Hi Tessa!”

“Hi Katie, how are you?”

“Good!” She goes quiet and Tessa wonders if she should say something until Katie starts up again. “Except I have maths… algebra first thing.”

“Oh, that’s not a great start to the morning.”

“Right?! It’s my least favourite subject by far.” She’s still getting used to her accent, it’s mainly British and then some words are so Canadian.

“Mine too.”

“Really?” She sounds so pleased by this.

“Yes, I had to work so hard, it didn’t make sense to me? I could do the problems eventually, I just never really understood it.”

“Yes! And Mum’s so good at it that she can’t really explain what’s going on? It’s so obvious to her or something.”

“That sounds like Scott. He used to offer to help me with my homework, but it came so naturally to him and it was so unnatural to me that we both just got frustrated.”

Katie laughs and it makes Tessa feels like she’s lit up from the inside. She gets to talk to her on the phone and make her laugh.

“Mum and I were looking through old photo albums last night for when we show them to you next time and we found this one of me when I was small where I looked just like him!”

“Oh, wow.” The resemblance between Katie and Scott was clear to her, but she hadn’t expected it to be as obvious to others. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“You’ll be here on the second of October?”

“Yes, that’s when Scott will be in Toronto next.”

“Great.” She hears some rustling, like Katie is stuffing things into a bag. “I need to go, but I’ll see you then!”

“We’re both looking forward to it a lot.”

“Me too.” She pauses. “I could maybe message you before then, like, to let you know how I’m doing.”

Tessa pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’d love that. We both would.”

“Okay, cool. Bye, Tessa!”

“Bye, Katie.”

She hugs the phone to her chest for a minute, and then presses 1 and starts to tell Scott all about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Tessa imagining all those other scenarios emotionally wrecked (and majorly distracted) me more than anything else in this fic.
> 
> One more chapter to go!


	6. 'Let's do some living'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to M, my very favourite Canadian. Thank you to carmen_sandiego, a truly excellent consultant. Thank you, thank you, thank you to do_not_confess, who has been part of this process from the very beginning, for her wonderful ideas, her superb editing, and most of all, her friendship.
> 
> And thank you to all of you for trusting me with this story, and for making my days with your comments, tumblr asks, and messages.

_**May 2022** _

Katie is just finishing up her make-up when her phone buzzes with a message. She smiles when she sees it’s from Tessa, and smiles wider when she reads that Tessa wants to know if she’s free to talk.

“Jen, I’m going out on the balcony to ring Tessa,” she calls out.

“I’m still sad Model UN was the same weekend as the Ontario shows,” Jenny replies from the bathroom. “Is it okay for me to use your lip stain? The Laura Mercier one?”

“Yeah, sure, it’s on the dressing table with the rest of my stuff.” She is not going to think about the applicator sweeping over Jenny’s lips, tinting them a deeper pink. Not at all. She is mature. She is handling everything.

She opens the glass sliding door and steps out onto the balcony. She won’t tell her mum she’s been out on it, she’s obsessed with how many accidents occur on them.

Tessa picks up quickly (she always does unless she can’t get to the phone) and it’s so good to hear her voice again, she hasn’t seen as much of her and Scott recently with all the tours they’ve been participating in after the Olympics.

“Hi Katie, how is Model UN going?”

“Good! A little intimidating at first because some people here have been doing these kind of things for years, but I think I’ve got the hang of it now.” Jenny did it last year, and she’s told her all she needs to know. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you guys skate, Mum and Grandma said you were amazing.”

Her mum had allegedly tried to take a video, but all she managed to get was a lot of photos.

“I’m happy it’s going well. We met them afterwards and they gave me the flowers and the card.”

Tessa goes silent and she starts to worry that maybe she shouldn’t have got her anything, but then she hears the type of breathing Tessa does when she’s trying not to cry. “I wasn’t expecting anything at all. I thought the flowers were for the show? They’re so beautiful, I love the colours. But then when we got back home I opened the card and… it’s so lovely.”

“I got the carnations from Grandma’s garden.” She’d pressed them and her mum had helped glue them onto the card. It had been her mum who suggested a card in the first place a few weeks ago, Katie had wanted to do something but she was worried about how it would make her mum feel. She’d looked at cards online first but none of them were right, they had messages like ‘To the best birth mother ever!’ and none of them seemed very Tessa.

“Oh, that makes it even more special.” Tessa had better not give in to these tears because if she does Katie is definitely going to join her. “I love the card, and, and what you wrote inside.”

It had taken her forever to figure out what to say, and in the end it was barely two sentences -

_Dear Tessa,_

_Happy Mothers' Day. I’m so happy to have you in my life._

_Love,_  
_Katie._

But she thinks it sums it up.

“Scott’s here now too, I’ll put you on loudspeaker so you can talk to him.”

“Hey Katie, have you solved the world’s problems yet?”

She laughs, “Almost. We have our concluding discussions tomorrow so that’s when we’ll achieve world peace.”

“Great, always knew you could do it. Have you seen much of Vancouver or have you been too busy?”

“We’ve been stuck inside the whole time, and we’re leaving straight after we finish tomorrow.” She looks around. “We got a hotel room with a nice view though, it looks pretty.”

“You’ll have to head out there again then. You do get some time to relax, right? You’re not just debating international relations the whole time?”

“Yes, we have social time this evening, I think there was meant to be a party organised by the teachers but the hotel has a wedding and they don’t want a bunch of teenagers hanging around downstairs so we’re just having it in people’s rooms.”

“Oh. Will it still be supervised?”

“Scott,” she hears Tessa murmur.

“You were at those JGP and Junior Worlds parties with me, Tessa!”

“Yes, but those were after the competition, they still have events tomorrow, they’re not going to go wild.” Tessa pauses. “You will still have teachers doing room checks and stuff though, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She knows there’s some system for warning when teachers are on their way but she has the impression that’s not what they want to hear.

“Okay, good. Um, if anything happens that makes you uncomfortable you should leave and, uh, tell a teacher?”

He’s going to be the cutest dad someday.

“Yes, I’ll do that. I should probably get going actually, I’ll text you to let you know how everything goes tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Tessa says.

“And I’ll see you when you’re back from tour, so in about two weeks?”

“Yes, can’t wait.”

“Great. Love you, bye!”

They’d been moving around a little, probably getting their own things ready, but the line goes completely silent and she realises that’s the first time she’s told them she loves them out loud.

“We love you, too.” Tessa’s voice is a little shaky, but somehow firm at the same time.

“Always,” adds Scott.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll see you soon.” They echo her goodbyes and then she hangs up.

She thinks she would be more taken up with the fact that she and her biological parents have just formally said they loved each other except for the sight of Jennifer Ebba Yilin Zhao when she goes back into her room.

“You’re not wearing your glasses,” is the first thing she comes out with.

“Oh, yeah, I told you I was practising with contacts? My optician said I can use them without supervision now.”

“And you have a braid in your hair.” It’s a skinny one that joins the rest of her hair at the back in a ponytail.

“I felt like something different.” Jenny is fixing the short skirt of her pink dress, but Katie’s not going to start talking about that.

“It’s nice. You look nice. I mean, you always look nice, but this is… nice.” Ms Carpenter had told her she had a good chance of getting a prize for her performance in the committee meetings, but clearly the only prize she deserves to win this weekend is for overuse of the word ‘nice’.

Katie doesn’t know how you’re meant to come out to your best friend when you’re kind of, maybe, probably, totally in love with her. She wants to tell her, but that would likely also involve telling her she likes her, seeing as Jenny is the reason she even figured out she was gay.

It had just been so obvious all of a sudden, like part of her had always known and she hadn’t been able to admit it. It wasn’t that her life changed, it was just that it felt more like _her_ life, like she could see things more clearly. It was a bit like realising she loved Tessa and Scott actually, it just _was_.

She doesn’t know if it’s fair to Jenny that she likes her in that way and isn’t telling her, but the idea of coming out to her and her not wanting to be her friend anymore is so overwhelmingly scary.

“Nice,” Jenny repeats. “Thanks.” She almost sounds sarcastic, but then she smiles and sounds like herself again. “You look great, I love that top.”

“Thanks, my mum…”

“Got it for your birthday.” She has the best smile. “How was Tessa?”

“Good! She loved the card.”

“Of course she did, it was beautiful.” Jenny reaches her hand out as if to touch her and then turns around and goes to the wardrobe to grab her denim jacket, “If you’re ready we should probably go, I told Greg we’d be there by eight.”

It takes her a second to think of who Greg is, before she realises it’s Kyrgyzstan (or the guy from Montréal who is representing the interests of Kyrgyzstan here at Model UN, whatever). He is totally into Jenny, and Katie kind of hates that nation right about now.

“Sure, let’s go!” She may have learned her forced bright tone from Tessa’s press conference voice.

“I was talking to my parents when you were on the phone with Tessa,” Jenny says as they head down the hallway. “Peter has a hockey camp he apparently can’t miss during the time we’re going to Sweden this summer so Dad is going to stay with him and it will just be me and Mom going.”

Jenny’s little brother is seriously into hockey, Katie can’t figure out if he’s actually good or he just thinks he is. “I’m sorry. At least you’ll get to spend time with your mom?”

“Yeah.” Jenny sighs as she presses the button for the lift. “It’s just that… I know Sweden is really multicultural and it won’t be a big deal when we’re in Stockholm, but what if I’m the only person who looks like me when we get out to whatever rural area Mom’s ancestors are from? She’ll fit in because she’s all blonde and blue eyes and I’ll just stick out.”

Katie had never really thought about how different Jenny and her mom looked. “Do people sometimes wonder if you’re…”

“Adopted? All the time when it’s just me and Mom. They’re so weird about it too, we used to get all these people in supermarkets coming up to us and talk about me like I was some little doll she’d picked up when travelling.” Worry crosses her face, “And I don’t mind people thinking I’m adopted, you know I don’t have a problem with adoption.” Katie nods, because it seems like Jenny needs reassurance. “It’s just… why does it matter either way? She’s my mom.”

“I know.” Katie wants to hug her, but she’s kind of stopped touching her after the whole ‘oh yes, I’m actually very gay and in love with Jenny’ realisation in case it freaks her out once she knows.

They’ve arrived at Kyrgyzstan’s room anyway so there isn’t any more time for serious conversation.

They knock and when he opens the door he throws his arms around them and shouts their names as if they’re lifelong best friends as opposed to people who’ve known each other for two days.

Jenny kind of jumps when he puts his arm around her and Katie feels like there’s something stuck in her throat. Maybe she’s into him too and Katie will have to see them make googly eyes at each other, or _kiss_ , and then have to listen to every detail and pretend like it’s not hurting her.

Jenny steps out of his embrace, but when she tries to do the same he doesn’t let go and turns towards her saying, “Katherine, we should discuss trade tariffs.”

This is strange both because the only people to call her Katherine with any regularity are her grandparents on her dad’s side, and because she’s a WHO representative at this event so why would she be discussing trade tariffs? She guesses talking to her alone is some ploy of his to get close to Jenny through her, boys are so weird.

Jenny looks kind of disappointed (ugh, what if she really likes this guy?) and mumbles something about seeing her later.

Kyrgyzstan doesn’t even mention trade tariffs, or Jenny, he just talks at her about how he’s trying to decide whether he should apply for Ivy League schools in the States and about how he scored a bunch of points (goals? She’s not really paying attention) for his lacrosse team last weekend. Does he want her to be impressed and relay all this information to Jenny? She keeps looking around for her, she’s sitting over beside these sweet girls from Manitoba. She seems quieter than usual.

She manages to get away from him after a while and goes over to sit beside her. “You seem to be having a good time with Greg,” Jenny says in this oddly high voice. Oh God, she hopes she’s not jealous, she must have the wrong idea about all of this.

“We should play spin the bottle!” booms out a now annoyingly familiar voice. Fucking Kyrgyzstan.

Spin the bottle sounds like hell to her. What if she has to kiss some boy, or, worse still, watch Jenny kiss some boy (specifically Kyrgyzstan who’s probably going to rig the whole thing)?

Jenny stands up. Shit, she must be really into this idea.

“I’m not feeling so well. You should stay here and have fun. I’ll go back to the room.” Or not.

“I’ll go with you.”

“You really don’t have to, I’ll be fine.” She’s crossing her arms now.

Kyrgyzstan comes over to them and asks, “Are you two ready to play?”

“Katie’s ready. I’m going back to our room.” Jenny announces.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Well, I don’t think there’d be much fun for you if I threw up all over your two hundred-dollar loafers,” Jenny bites out and turns to leave.

Katie almost takes a step back. This is not her Jenny (nonetheless, she’s still very into this new side of her).

Kyrgyzstan looks just as shocked. Katie says, “I’m going to go too, I have to take care of her.”

He reaches for her hand as she goes and she walks faster. For someone who once described exercise as her mortal enemy Jenny can really speed away when she wants to.

She catches up with her just before she enters the lift. “Are you trying out for the track team?” she breathes out.

Jenny frowns as she presses the button. “I told you you should stay.”

“I didn’t want to, not without you. And you’re sick! I can’t leave you alone.”

“Thanks.” It really doesn’t sound like she means it.

They’re silent in the lift and on the walk back to their room.

“Maybe you should go outside and see if some fresh air helps,” she suggests when they get inside. “I can bring you out a glass of water.”

“I’d just like to be alone,” Jenny says, and she shuts the door out to the balcony behind her.

Could she have figured out that she likes her? She never should have waited this long to tell her.

She sits on her bed and looks at her phone. There’s a message from Scott thanking her for the card and flowers she gave to Tessa and saying how it had meant so much to her.

They would be the perfect people to consult about having feelings for your best friend, but she’d have to come out to them first, and she’s not sure that she’s ready for that. The only people she’s come out to are her mum and grandma.

She’d gone down to the kitchen in a daze after she’d realised and blurted it out to her mum who hadn’t even blinked and had launched into this very sweet and supportive talk that she clearly had prepared. It turned out she’d been pretty sure about Katie’s sexuality for at least three years and had been waiting for this moment. Some of her reasonings were pretty weak though, she’s sure straight girls listen to Hayley Kiyoko too.

Her grandma had been a bit more cautious about it all, but she wasn’t surprised either, and when Katie had asked her why, she’d said, “You do talk about that lovely girl Jenny an awful lot.”

She needs to tell her. She deserves to know.

She knocks lightly on the glass door and Jenny turns around to look at her and nods.

She’s barely out on the balcony before Jenny says, “I’m sorry about how weird I’ve been.”

“You haven’t been…”

“I absolutely have.”

She sits down on the other chair beside her.

“I’m sure Greg is actually a great guy.”

“Greg? Oh, Kyrgyzstan.”

Jenny looks a little exasperated. “Katie, you really should call him by his name. I’m pretty sure part of the whole philosophy behind Model UN is humanising people from different countries and backgrounds and showing how we can all cooperate. And if you keep calling him Kyrgyzstan I’m going to start hating that country, and that would be really unfair to all the Kyrgyzstanis who I’m sure are great people.”

Katie shivers, she should have worn a cardigan. “So, you don’t like him then?”

Jenny laughs. “No, I don’t like him.” Any relief Katie feels is short-lived. “I like someone else.”

And then the world stops. “I like you.”

There isn’t even enough time to feel shocked because she has to try and keep up with how fast Jenny is talking. “As more than a friend I mean. And I obviously don’t expect anything, I just thought you should know, because you’re my best friend and it’s weird not to tell you. I didn’t even know I liked girls, I had always just liked boys, so I don’t really know about labels or anything yet, I just know I like you. And I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable, I’m not going to, like, start trying to kiss you or anything.”

Katie keeps trying to say something but no words are coming out, and Jenny just keeps on rambling, becoming more and more apologetic. “If it really bothers you I’m sure I could room with someone else tonight. I wouldn’t mind! I knew I should have told you before this, I knew it! But I didn’t want to ruin things and…”

Eventually Katie just has to shout out, “I’m gay! I am a lesbian! I only like girls!” probably coming out to anyone else who’s out on their balcony in the process.

“Oh,” Jenny blinks. “That’s good. That you understand! I know that just because you like girls doesn’t mean that you like me.”

Jenny’s the smartest person she knows, but she’s being a bit clueless right now, she’s going to have to spell it out. “I only figured it out because of how much I like you. I was thinking about you all the time – about how wonderful you are, and how pretty, and how great your hair smells, and then I started thinking about kissing you and everything seemed to make sense all of a sudden.” Jenny looks really flushed. “Do you need a glass of water? Are you still feeling ill?”

She lets out this huge, slightly hysterical, laugh. “Oh my God, _Katie_ , I was never sick. I thought you liked Greg, and you were going to kiss him, and I couldn’t watch that, but you thought I liked him, but I don’t. I like you, and you like me.” She shakes her head and repeats it, “I like you, and you like me. That’s how I figured it out too, I was thinking about you all. the. time. How beautiful you are, and how funny, and how smart, and about how much I wanted to kiss you.” She laughs again, “How did it take us so long to tell each other this?”

“In my defence, my biological parents are actually world famous for taking forever to get together. I can’t help my genes.”

“We’ll just blame Tessa and Scott then.”

“Yeah.” Jenny likes her. Jenny wants to kiss her. “You, uh, did you say something about kissing? Us kissing? Maybe?” Her voice gets higher with each question.

“Yes, I did.” She blushes, and it’s the most adorable thing Katie has seen in her entire life. “We don’t have to rush into anything though, if you want to wait.”

“I don’t want to wait,” she blurts out. “Unless you do!”

Jenny shakes her head, “No, I don’t want to wait either.”

This is actually going to happen. “I mightn’t be any good at it. I kissed this boy back in London and it was terrible.”

Jenny takes her hand in hers, and, oh God, they’re holding hands and Katie feels like her heart might explode. “You’re a lesbian, Katie, it makes sense that kissing a boy wasn’t a great experience.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Jenny reaches out and pushes some of her hair behind her ear, leaving her hand on her cheek, and Katie’s death due to cardiac arrest is imminent. “And it’s okay if it’s not perfect the first time, we’ll figure things out.”

Katie leans forward and her lips are on Jenny’s and the first time is perfect indeed. She still doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she knows she likes it, and judging from the way Jenny is holding her closer she likes it too. She’s always liked the taste of that lip stain, but it tastes about a million times better on Jenny’s lips. It’s so soft and gentle at first and then she slips her tongue over Jenny’s and she can feel Jenny gasp, and she did that, she made her react that way. She could do this forever she thinks.

When they break apart Jenny’s eyes are closed. “I think we figured things out.”

Katie laughs and Jenny opens her eyes, and she looks just as amazingly, incredibly happy as Katie feels.

Jenny reaches out and touches the edge of her lips with her thumb. “This lip stain stays on remarkably well.”

“We should leave a really glowing customer review.”

“Definitely. After more kissing?”

“After more kissing.” She grins, and kisses her again (and again and again and again and again and again).

 

_**June 2022** _

Scott must be looking at his watch more often than usual because Sabine picks up on it (of course).

“Is everything okay? Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

“We could finish early,” Luc pants. He’s not a fan of double run-throughs, or of the twizzle reps Scott has them working on afterwards.

“There’s only five minutes left anyway, you did great work today, head out and get changed.”

Luc takes off but Sabine lingers, looking a little worried.

“Tessa’s picking me up, we’re going to visit some friends. We hadn’t seen them for a very long time until recently so now we’re getting to know each other. Again.” It’s not exactly a lie.

Sabine smiles, “I hope we get to see Tessa before you leave.”

“I’m beginning to think you only came to Toronto to be near her, not to be coached by me.” He clutches his hand to his chest.

Sabine rolls her eyes at him, “How did you know?”

“Just a hunch.”

She shakes her head at him as she skates off to the boards where Luc has been waiting for her. He pulls her ponytail as they head out to the changing rooms.

Scott sometimes still gets these little moments of disbelief that they’d followed him to Ontario. When he’d asked them if they were sure they wanted to leave Montréal they’d acted like it wasn’t even something to be considered. The move itself has been less easy though. Sabine loved Toronto from the moment she arrived, bonding quickly with everyone at the rink and her new host family, but Luc missed his old friends and struggled with the language. It had caused so much tension between them, eventually leading to an all-out on-ice screaming match in French that had more or less traumatised a new junior team Scott had just paired up. He’d sent them away to cool off and had expected to hold a mediation session that afternoon but instead they’d returned an hour later, apologised to everyone, and got to work. Thankfully, things had been a lot easier since then. He would have felt so guilty if them moving to work with him had damaged their partnership.

He goes to check his phone and sees that Tessa has messaged him to say that she arrived early and was waiting in the lobby. He changes out of his skates quickly and grabs his notes before heading out to meet her.

She’s chatting to Brian and when she sees him over his shoulder she smiles.

Brian greets him and then rushes off to his mass of students.

He kisses Tessa on the cheek and holds her close. “How did the pitch go?”

“Great! We got more funding than we were expecting.”

“That’s fantastic, Tess.” He knows how important these funds are for the organisation to roll out their new programmes.

“Also fantastic is that I’ll see more of you now it’s over.” He’s had to drag her away from her laptop the past few nights. “How was your day?”

“Good. Ellis and Min-jun finally have the rotational down to five seconds, we had a rink dance party. She seems a lot more confident, I think that talk you had with her really helped.” Tessa has been a godsend as he’s been getting to know the teams already training at the Cricket Club and the ones who’ve joined since it was announced he’s heading up the dance programme now.

“I’m sure it has more to do with her having a great coach.” She taps his chest.

“Tessa!” He steps out of the way so Luc and Sabine can hug her.

“Your boyfriend is trying to murder us,” Luc complains.

“Murder you?! Scott, that’s not the way to treat your students.” She glares at him in mock disapproval with a French ice dancer under each arm.

“Luc is being dramatic as usual. We need to work hard to be ready for our competitions, to win our competitions.” Sabine has always been focused, but it’s razor sharp now, and Luc, especially since that fight, is a lot more serious this summer. Scott wonders if seeing Gabi and Guillaume miss out on gold at the Olympics again has lit a fire under them to be the first French team to win since Anissina/Peizerat.

“Don’t work too hard though, okay?” Tessa squeezes Sabine’s shoulder. “Have you any plans this evening?”

“Yes, Lily is having a dance recital, she’s the youngest of the girls. Luc is going to drive me there.” Sabine’s host family have three little girls who adore her and she seems much more content than she had been with the family she stayed with in Montréal.

“We should be leaving now,” Luc says.

“Will you be at the rink again soon?” Sabine asks.

Tessa nods. “I’m not going to be as busy at work for the next while so I should have more time over here.”

Sabine beams and hugs Tessa again before hugging Scott and saying goodbye. Luc follows suit and they head out chattering in a mixture of French and English.

He puts one arm around Tessa, “We should probably get going too, eh?”

On the drive to Katie’s house he gets Tessa to give him the full story of the pitch with the sponsors. There’s a part of him that would love to have her coaching at the rink with him full time, but she’s so passionate about her work, and so freaking good at it, that he could never ask her to give that up.

They’re nearing the neighbourhood when she says, “The realtor suggested we view a house near here next week.”

“Near here?!” They had done well for themselves post-PyeongChang, but probably not buying a house in Lawrence Park well.

Tessa laughs. “She described it as having the amenities and atmosphere but not the really high price tag.”

“Well, good, I want to be able to send our kids to college.”

Her cheeks get a little pinker and her smile is so bright. “I think we’ll manage. Anyway, I was thinking it mightn’t be the best idea, I don’t want Laura and Katie to feel like we’re encroaching on them.”

“Of course not.” He looks around. “But we probably shouldn’t just discount it without giving it a shot.”

They’re not intense about house-hunting right now, more keeping an eye on the market in case something they really love pops up. He thinks he wants to wait to seriously search until after they’re engaged, and he hasn’t figured out his proposal yet.

“Sure,” Tessa agrees before leaning out the window to type in the security code that opens the gate to the house.

It’s not so much that Katie’s home is huge or ostentatious, it’s just… grand. It looks like old money – stately windows, a long, perfectly manicured lawn, and a door with a heavy knocker.

They’d both been a little in shock the first time they’d been here back in October and they must have looked it because when Laura had opened the door she’d said, “I know it’s a bit much, but my ex-husband gave me all this money in our divorce and I always wanted a fancy old house.”

This time it’s Katie answering the door, still in her school uniform. She hugs them quickly and then rushes up the stairs shouting that she has two hours in her study timetable to spend with them.

Her grandma, Rosemary, is waiting in the hall too and she shakes her head at this. “She’s taking these finals much too seriously, she’s far too like her mother.” She pokes Tessa with a smile, “Like both of them I imagine.” Scott is left thinking that poor Katie had no shot at being relaxed about school.

Rosemary hugs Tessa and compliments her on her dress. She offers her cheek for him to kiss and then turns back to Tessa, “Laura might need your help later, dear.” She drops her voice to a whisper, or, at least what she seems to think is a whisper, “She has a date and she doesn’t know what to wear.”

“It’s not a date, Mom.” Laura appears at his side. “It’s… probably a business dinner.”

“Oh yes, intimate Italian restaurants on Friday evenings are exactly the place where CEOs take women to discuss forensic accounting.”

“Maybe they do in Toronto! Tessa, you have business meetings here, I’m sure you can tell her this is common practice?”

Tessa is looking back and forth between them so he steps in. “Well, Tessa is involved in the charity sector so it’s a bit different.”

Laura shoots him a glance that’s close to murderous and he resolves to never do anything to anger her.

Katie comes rushing back down the stairs. “Oh, did someone bring up Mum’s date?”

“It’s not a date!”

“He sent you flowers a few days ago. It’s definitely a date.”

“That was as a thank you for the book recommendations I gave him. I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything.”

Katie rolls her eyes and mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “Oblivious.”

Tessa puts her hand on Katie’s arm. “If you’re too busy with studying we don’t have to stay, we don’t want to keep you from anything.”

“No, don’t worry, I’ve everything planned out! I need to see you before I go stay with my dad next week.” She takes Tessa’s arm in hers and starts heading towards the living room, saying to her mum and grandma on her way, “I’ll send her up to you by the time you’re agreed that this is a date and that’s what she should be styling you for.”

He follows them in and takes his usual place beside Tessa on the couch while Katie curls up in an armchair.

“You don’t mind helping Mum, do you?” she frowns.

“Of course not! It will be fun.”

“I think she and Grandma need the help of an adult who’s been on a date with someone new in the last quarter of a century.”

Tessa laughs. “I was going to say it’s been a while since I’ve been on a date, I take it Scott doesn’t count?” Katie shakes her head emphatically. “But if we’re talking that timeframe I’ve got you covered.”

“Well, our first date still falls into that category too.”

Tessa turns to him, her voice teasing. “We’re talking about going on a first date with someone you don’t know that well, I’d already known you for eight years by then.”

He can’t resist taking her hand in his.

“Um, talking about, uh, you two and dating…”

They both turn to look at Katie who looks so nervous all of a sudden, more nervous than she’d been the first day they met her. She’s rubbing circles into her legs.

“There’s something I have to tell you, and it’s, uh, it’s really important? I’ve been seeing someone, and I don’t want you to freak out or anything but…”

No. He’s not sure who is the one holding tighter, him or Tessa, but their hands are in a vice grip and he knows she’s thinking the same thing he is. Katie looks so scared, and she has to tell them something important about dating someone and she doesn’t want them to freak out… No, no, no, no, no…

“Well, it’s my friend Jenny. I’m, um, I’m gay.”

Scott feels Tessa relax beside him just as the words “Thank FUCK,” exit his mouth.

“Shit! I’m so sorry…” All of his plans to not swear in front of Katie have clearly gone out the window.

She looks so shocked and then starts laughing, loud and happy, and then Tessa, who had looked slightly horrified, joins in.

“What I really mean is… uh…” What is he meant to say in this situation? “That’s great? Thank you… thank you for…”

Tessa squeezes his hand and takes Katie’s hand in her other one. “Thank you for sharing that with us. We… we could tell you were really nervous.”

Before she can say anything else Katie jumps in, “I didn’t know how you’d react. I don’t think I was expecting that reaction, but it was definitely a good one.”

“You see…” He’s still at a loss for words.

Tessa saves him, like always. “You seemed so nervous, and you asked us not to freak out, and you told us it was important, and, well, I guess in our frame of reference of teenagers being scared to tell people things about their relationship all that suggests…”

“Oh my God! You thought I was pregnant?! Nooo, not going to be a problem. No unplanned pregnancies here, ever.” Her eyes widen. “Not that there’s anything wrong with having a teenage pregnancy, I mean…” She waves her hands around sort of encircling the three of them.

“Of course not,” Tessa soothes. “We didn’t mean that that would have been a, a bad thing? We could never regret it, without it there wouldn’t be you, but… it wasn’t easy. It’s not something I’d… want someone else to go through.”

He finds his voice again. “If you had been pregnant, that wouldn’t have changed anything for us. Just like you being gay doesn’t change anything.”

“You’re Katie, and we love you,” Tessa smiles.

“We always will, no matter what.”

Scott barely has the words out before Katie flings one arm around each of their necks and lands on the couch squashed between them.

“I love you both, too.” She’d told them that before, but not in person, and he feels like the luckiest man in the world to get to hear their daughter say it as she hugs them with Tessa’s hand in his across her back.

Katie turns around and they move a little so that she has room to sit in between them.

“So, tell us all about you and Jenny,” Tessa prompts.

Katie blushes, and in that moment she looks so like Tessa. Scott’s used to the resemblance now, she just looks like herself to him, but sometimes it’s so clear. She tells them about how she’d liked her for ages before realising the exact way in which she liked her, and how Jenny had been feeling the same way. When she reveals that their first kiss had taken place when they were away on their model UN trip he can’t help raising his eyebrows at Tessa. He told her things always happened at those events! Though a balcony sounds like a much more romantic setting than a hallway.

Tessa asks if they can see pictures of the two of them and Katie unveils an entire photo album on her phone. Jenny is shorter than she is, with long black hair and usually wearing a pair of bright purple glasses. They’re the cutest couple he’s seen in his life.

“Jenny’s the one who told me I looked like Tessa in the first place,” Katies says. “So, she’s kind of the reason we’re… back in each other’s lives.”

“We have a lot to be grateful to her for then.” Tessa’s eyes are so watery. He’s about to reach his arm across to her when Katie rests her head on her shoulder.

They hear someone coming down the stairs and Rosemary enters the room clapping her hands together lightly. “Laura has finally admitted that this might be a date. Tessa, we need your assistance. She’s losing her head up there.”

“Of course.” Tessa gets up, squeezing Katie’s shoulders as she goes, and then it’s just the two of them.

Katie puts her phone down. “I have to go get something. I’ll only be a minute!”

It’s never usually just the two of them, Scott’s not quite sure what he should talk about. He should apologise again for the expletive-ridden response to her coming out. Christ, he had made a mess of that.

Katie comes back in holding a light blue paper bag that she hands to him. “I won’t be here for Fathers’ Day, that’s part of the reason why I’m going to see my dad this month, so… Happy early Fathers’ Day!”

“Oh. Oh. I… I didn’t expect anything.” His heart is stuck somewhere high up his throat.

Katie seems so confused. “I got Tessa something for Mothers’ Day.”

That’s very true, and something he could never forget.

Tessa had been convinced the flowers were for the show, but there’d been something about the way Laura had given them to her that made him think they meant a lot more than ‘well done on the skating’. Tessa also hadn’t noticed that the card was addressed just to her, not until they were back in their apartment and she had just finished putting the flowers in a vase.

There had been pressed pink flowers on the front of the card, carnations, Tessa told him, and on the inside the message Katie had written read ‘Happy Mothers’ Day. I’m so happy to have you in my life.’

Tessa had fallen into his arms, she wasn’t even crying at first, just breathing so, so hard. And then the tears had come and he’d led her into their bedroom, not letting go the entire time. They lay on the bed with her sobbing into his chest for what must have been an hour. He kissed her hair and ran his hand up and down her back, not saying anything, just letting her cry.

Eventually she whispered, “I could never think of myself that way. As…” She looked up at him like she wanted him to say it first.

“As her mother.”

“Yes, as her mother. I knew I was biologically but… I felt- I felt like I couldn’t claim even that. I’d done nothing to deserve being a mother.”

“Tessa,” he wiped her cheek with his thumb. “You’ve been putting her first all this time – when you were pregnant, when you thought about her, when you met her. Tess, you could have answered her questions so many different ways with things you needed to say, but you just told her what she needed to hear. And now, you let her take the lead. You have always put her first and that,” he finally started crying then too, “that is what a mother does.”

She kissed him, tears running down both their faces.

“And, you’re the reason she’s here. You were the one who…”

“Because of you.” She gripped onto his arm. “Because of us. She’s here because we loved each other so, so much. You’re her biological father, and I’m her biological mother, and she,” Tessa took a breath, “she’s our daughter. She’s Laura’s daughter, but in some ways she’s ours too.”

It was the first time she’d ever allowed herself to call Katie her daughter.

Scott clears his throat, “I remember. It was beautiful.”

He hadn’t expected something for him though. Tessa and Katie clicked so well together, Tessa was always the one who seemed to know exactly what to say.

Katie reaches out her hand and places it on his arm. “And why wouldn’t I get something for you too? I- I love you both the same.”

The only response he can make to that is to hug her. She’s probably the same height as Tessa but she feels so small in his arms.

She wipes her eyes when he lets go. He takes out an envelope and neatly wrapped present from the bag and she tells him to open the card first. “The present is for both you and Tessa really.”

This card has red rose petals pressed onto the front. “From Grandma’s garden again,” Katie explains. “I think she’s starting to worry that I’m going to set up a card-making business.”

“It’s lovely.” He opens it to find the same message as was on Tessa’s, just the different name and Fathers’ Day instead of Mothers’.

“I know it’s the same thing as I said to Tessa, and it’s not everything, you know, but…”

“I love it.” He looks into those eyes that match his own. “I love it more than I can tell you.”

“It’s hard to know what to say. I feel like it’s always either not enough or… it would be too much.”

He nods. “I know the feeling.”

“Yeah?” She looks hopeful he thinks.

“Sometimes I don’t say things when I should, especially when I was younger… with Tessa especially. And then other times I just blurt out stupid things.” He shakes his head, “You heard what I said when you came out to us earlier. I’m really sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make it about me.”

Katie giggles. “It was a very positive reaction. I’ve only told Mum and Grandma and they were great, but not quite that enthusiastic.”

“It really does mean so much to me and Tessa that you trust us with that, that you wanted to tell us.”

“I… I don’t think I’m ready for everyone to know… for all that might involve? Or what people could say?”

“I can’t know what that must be like. It sounds… scary.” He can’t even think about what people could say or think about Katie just because of who she is, not right now anyway, it would tear him up too much.

“Yeah.” She looks up from the spot on the ground she’d been staring at. “I wasn’t nervous about telling you because I thought you and Tessa would be homophobic or anything. I knew you weren’t like that. It was more…” She twists her ring around, it’s the one he and Tessa had given her for her birthday. “That being gay mightn’t be what you expected of… of your child. I feel like you two are… It's stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it’s something you feel, Katie,” he keeps his tone gentle.

She takes a deep breath. “I guess you two are kind of my idea of what it looks like when a man and woman are in love. Not that you’re, like, gender stereotypes or anything, just that… It’s so obvious how in love you are, and that- that it’s going to last? And even if I do have a love like that, it won’t look the same as yours and Tessa’s because it will be me and another girl. And I suppose… I didn’t know how you might feel about that.”

“All I could ever want is for you to love someone like I love Tessa, and to have that same love back in return. I’d like you to have an easier road than we’ve had,” they both laugh a little, “but all I, all we, want is for you to be happy. We don’t care who that’s with as long as they treat you well.”

Katie smiles at him, happy and bright.

Scott hears Tessa come down the stairs. “We’re going to have a fashion show,” she announces, “we have three options and your mum is going to show us each of them. She’ll be down soon.”

“You should open the present first,” Katie urges.

He smiles at Tessa as she walks towards him. “Katie gave me a Fathers’ Day card and a present for both of us.”

Her face is so joyful and God, he loves that look so much. Tessa sits up on the armrest beside him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He’s thankful for it because his fingers are almost shaking when he starts to carefully open the gift.

It’s a photo frame, and inside is a photo of him, Tessa and Katie. It must have been taken in Katie’s backyard when they met up after he and Tessa finished up with Stars on Ice. They’re sitting around the table on the patio, he’s in the middle with Tessa and Katie on either side and they’re both laughing while he’s smiling at them like this is the best thing he’s ever seen. It’s beautiful.

“Wow. I…” He has no words.

“I, I didn’t know there were any pictures of the three of us.” Tessa says softly, holding him tighter.

“My mum took it without telling any of us, which is a bit creepy really, but… It’s great, right? You like it?”

“I love it.”

He feels Tessa nodding in agreement behind him.

“Good,” Katie beams. “Me too. I have it up on my wall.”

Laura and Rosemary come in then with Laura wearing the first of the options they have to choose from. They’re all much too interested in Scott’s opinion for his liking, he doesn’t have any clue about women’s clothes. If Tessa’s happy with what she’s wearing he’s happy (and maybe he’s happiest when that’s an old t-shirt of his, but the only other person who needs to know that is her). He tells Laura to wear the one she feels most confident in because it sounds like something Tessa would say.

After a verdict has been reached (outfit #2, a pink dress), Tessa says that it’s been two hours and they should let Katie get back to studying. She mumbles something about how they don’t have to go but when Tessa gives her a look she admits that she really would like to get more work done.

“When will you be back from England again?” he asks.

“The 28th of June.”

“Just in time for Canada Day.” Scott sometimes thinks it should be his favourite holiday, but there are obviously some complicated memories there.

“Yeah, I don’t know what we’re going to do for it. We had only just moved last year so we didn’t really do anything.”

Rosemary puts her arm around Laura. “Bill used to always have a barbecue in the backyard at our old house.” He’s gathered that her husband’s passing was a big part of why Laura and Katie returned to Canada. Rosemary has talked about him often to him and Tessa, about how they remind her of them when they were young, and seeing as how their marriage lasted over fifty years he thinks that’s a good omen.

“You should come to my family’s barbecue at my parents’ house in Ilderton. We have one every year.” Once the words are out he can’t quite believe he’s said them. He can feel Tessa stiffen ever so slightly beside him, something imperceptible to anyone but him.

“Oh, that’s so kind of you, Scott. Are you sure?” Laura looks so touched by this, and Katie and Rosemary so happy with the idea, that there’s no way he can back out now.

“Absolutely.”

“It will be great,” Tessa chimes in, and it’s so convincing that not even Katie seems to pick up on that tiny note of discomfort in her voice.

There’s a flurry of hugs and goodbyes at the front door.

“Would you mind driving?” Tessa asks as they walk to the car, taking the keys out of her purse.

“Sure.” They wave at Katie, Laura, and Rosemary who are waiting at the door as they leave.

When the gates have closed behind them he says, “Tess, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it through. It was so stupid, I had just been thinking about how Canada Day is… it’s complicated for us.”

Tessa sniffles, bringing a hand up to her face. He reaches his hand out to place on her knee before pausing, not sure if she wants him touching her right now. She puts her other hand over his and sets them down on her leg.

“I… Can we talk about it later? I think I need some quiet for a while.”

“Of course.” He squeezes her knee and they sit in silence for the rest of the journey.

They’re silent as they make their way up to their apartment too. When they get inside Tessa tells him she’s going to get changed. She starts heading down the hall but then turns back and puts her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. He doesn’t know if it’s more for his benefit or her own, but he loves her for it.

Tessa needs space when they’ve had a disagreement, or something has upset her. Sometimes it’s inconsequential things, like when he roasted garlic cooking dinner for her colleagues one evening and she’d been mad that the place had still smelled, while he’d been annoyed she wasn’t grateful he’d cooked dinner for her workmates, and she’d been piqued that he hadn’t trusted her to do it in the first place. But other times it was more serious – like when they somehow got around to discussing his relationship with Jess and Tessa had got so sad when she talked about what it had been like for her when they started dating. He learned that night that she actually didn’t want to be alone for too long, forty minutes tops and then she wanted him close to her.

Scott keeps an eye on the time as he tries to watch the news. He could maybe start on dinner, he knows Tessa won’t have eaten much at lunch, too nervous before the pitch to the potential donors.

It’s only twenty minutes until she comes and sits beside him wearing her oldest pair of leggings and a hoodie of his. She lifts his arm and curls in beside him.

She takes a beat and then dives straight in, “I love that you’re so warm and welcoming, it’s one of my favourite things about you.” She glances up at him, eyes twinkling just a little, “I have a lot of favourite things though,” and fuck, sometimes he still wonders what he ever did to deserve this. “But… the idea of Katie being, uh, there… where it all happened, on that same day? That’s something I need to get my head around. I was already wondering what it would be like, with us being together and having her in our lives. And I really… I would have liked for us to talk that through before you invited them. I think it’s something that should have been a discussion rather than…”

“Me just blurting it out?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry.”

“I know that you are.” She pulls herself in closer to him and lowers her voice, “I used to- used to wonder what it would be like if… if it hadn’t happened. And I understand why I did that, but it feels awful now because how could there be a world without Katie in it?”

He kisses her head. “I used to wonder about that, too. And yeah, it feels bad to remember that now, but… we didn’t know her then.”

“I know, you’re right.” Tessa rubs her hand across his chest. “It was a perfect day. We were so happy, and, God, so young, even if I thought I was so mature. The sensible part of me thinks we couldn’t have made it work, but…”

“Yeah. Me too.” There’s a part of him that thinks that nothing short of the magnitude of what did happen could have separated them.

“We made it, though.” She turns her face and kisses his cheek, and then his lips. “You can have another Canada Day barbecue introducing me to everyone as your girlfriend.”

He’d really like to have another title for her by then. “I kind of did that at Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Easter, and any other time I’ve met any of my family members. I thought you said girlfriend didn’t have enough depth for our relationship anyway?”

“I still like it when you say it.” She rubs her nose against his.

“I like saying it.” He kisses her. “Do you want to have dinner, Tess? I know you won’t have eaten much.”

“Yes,” she stands and tugs him up after her.

Scott puts his arm around her shoulder as they make their way to the kitchen. He grabs some tomatoes and vegetables from the fridge to start on a pasta sauce, and they begin chopping.

“There’s another thing about the barbecue,” she says, halfway through deseeding a pepper. “I’m not sure that Laura knows who all you might be referring to with family. They don’t have many close relations.”

“Oh shit, she probably thinks it’s going to be us, my parents, Danny and Charlie and their families, not…”

“The entire Moir clan, yeah. It mightn’t change anything, but it’s just something we should mention.”

There’s always so many people, the backyard full and the house spilling over. “Do you think…”

“People will realise?”

He nods, pausing to start heating the olive oil before continuing, “They all knew us back then.”

“If it was any other group of people I’d say they’d just buy her being my cousin, but it’s a bunch of Moirs, and she has Moir eyes, so… I really don’t know, Scott.”

He starts throwing the ingredients into the saucepan. Tessa rubs his arm, “It’s up to Katie and Laura if that’s not something they want to risk all those people figuring out, but I don’t mind your family knowing. They love us, and they’d want to protect her too, they wouldn’t share that with anyone else.”

“You’re right.” He stirs the sauce. “Wait. Vernon. Vernon would totally take photos and sell them.”

Tessa gives him a look that’s half chastisement and half acknowledgement that Vernon is indeed the worst. “Vernon is not going to put it together. And anyone who does wouldn’t tell him.” This is a fair point. “Oh,” her face breaks out into smile, “I forgot to put the photo of the three of us up in our room! It’s still in the bag.”

He hugs her to him. “It was quite the day. I still can’t believe what I said.”

“I couldn’t at first either, but Katie didn’t mind. And I know exactly how you were feeling.”

“Tess?” His voice sounds unusually hesitant to him.

“Yeah?”

“Is it bad that I’d never thought about Katie being gay?”

She wraps her arms more tightly around him. “I don’t think I’d thought about her being… any orientation.”

“Yeah, maybe that was it. I’m still getting used to her, I hadn’t thought about her dating anyone.”

“It does seem kind of obvious now though, she really does talk about Jenny a lot. It seems so silly that we jumped to pregnancy when everyone had been acting so normal beforehand.”

“I guess… maybe I thought it might make sense if she told us first, seeing as we’d gone through it?” He rubs her back.

“Those were a horrible few seconds. It’s…” She lifts her head from his shoulder so that their foreheads are touching. “It was the right thing to happen, even if it was… they way it was, because Katie is here, but…”

“I know, Tess.”

“We’re going to give our kids the most comprehensive sex education ever, okay?”

“Okay.”

He loves it so much when she talks about their future kids. He can’t wait. He’s going to be present for every single step. He’s going to see how Tessa’s body changes as their child grows inside her, he’s going to feel them kick. He’ll be there for the labour this time, there to hold her hand and see their baby the minute they arrive. He can’t wait to watch their kids grow up, maybe a boy with Tessa’s smile and a girl with her eyes. He can’t wait to collect them at school, to read to them at night, to skate with them. Him, Tessa, and their child going around a rink hand in hand in hand.

“Scott! Shouldn’t we put on the pasta?”

They hurry about trying to get things in order and then Tessa hugs him again.

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

He’s confused. “What about?”

“How I reacted to the barbecue thing.”

“You never need to be sorry about needing space.”

“I… I feel like I should be ready to deal with these things more quickly, I’ve been in therapy for so long I should be able to talk straight away.”

“That’s just not how it works I guess.”

She moves back so that she’s looking at him. “Even when I’m upset, or mad at you, you know that I’m so much happier than I could be with anyone else? Happier than I’ve ever been.”

“I’m the same.” He lightens his tone, “Guess there’s no getting rid of you then.”

Tessa’s voice stays serious, “No, never.”

He kisses her, trying to show her that he’s never leaving either.

He really needs to get planning that proposal.

 

A week or so later and his plans aren’t any firmer. They’re sitting on the couch with a Leafs replay on in the background while Tessa looks at houses on her laptop and he secretly researches proposal ideas on his phone.

He knows she won’t want anything over the top like fireworks or doves, but it needs to be special. Tessa deserves something special. It should take place somewhere romantic and significant for them, and he needs to ask her in a meaningful way, not say something weird like “Do you want to be buried in the Moir section of the Ilderton graveyard?” Charlie was fucking morbid sometimes.

“You do know it’s a replay and that they won?”

“Huh?”

Tessa is smiling at him, she looks so beautiful like this, relaxed, with her hair in a messy bun on top of her head. “You seem nervous.”

He realises he’s been rubbing his hand up and down her legs. She’s sitting at the other end of the couch to him with her feet on his lap. “Sorry, I’m just going over the new free dance requirements again. I want to make sure we have everything ready for summer comps.”

It’s a pity there aren’t any competitions he could enter his skaters for in Kitchener. That would be a good way to get Tessa there if he goes for the idea of proposing in the hotel where they had their first kiss. Though the idea of telling her that Suzanne wanted them to visit and help out her teams wasn’t a bad one. But maybe Kitchener isn’t the right place, maybe he should propose back at the rink where it really all began. For every place he thinks that’s filled with happy memories there are sad, complicated ones too – like skating for the first time after Tessa gave birth to Katie. Maybe that’s okay though, because all those difficult parts make up the story too, make it all the more beautiful that they came through them together.

“Oh! There’s a house in Hoggs Hollow that’s just gone up! You could walk to the rink from there. Oh my God, it’s gorgeous. It would need a little work but it looks like a home. You need to see it,” she hasn’t been this excited about any of the places they’ve viewed, “and it has such a big backyard with all these lovely trees! We could have a treehouse!” She frowns, “Wait, are treehouses really safe? I mean, I would trust you to build one, but they’re so high, and…”

God, he loves her so much. “Marry me.”

It looks like it’s taken the breath from her lungs just as it has from him. “Wh-what?”

“Please? Tessa Virtue, will… will you marry me?”

She puts her hands to her face and starts to cry, and then suddenly she’s in his arms clinging onto him, the laptop clattering to the floor somewhere in all that motion.

“Is that… please tell me this is a yes.”

“Of course it’s a yes,” she laughs, leaving teary kisses all over his face. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

“Oh, thank God. I’m sorry for just blurting it out, I had a plan! It was going to be someplace special and I was going to have a meaningful speech and, shit, I don’t even have a ring yet…”

“It was perfect. I don’t need a ring, or a speech, or some special location, I just need you.”

“Good.” He kisses her and they end up falling so that she’s lying on the couch with him half on top of her. It reminds him of making out with her at the very beginning, sloppy, like they couldn’t get enough of one another (and that’s something that has never changed).

She taps his shoulder. “About not needing a ring though…” she bites her lip, grinning, “I would like one.”

He laughs, burying his head into her neck. “I’m going to buy you the prettiest ring you’ve ever seen. Tess, I’ve been thinking about putting a ring on your finger for so long.”

The mood shifts a little then as they think about all that time when this had seemed almost an impossibility. Tessa strokes his cheek so softly. “And you’re going to do that, Scott. We’re going to get married, and have more babies, and we’re going to do it all together, the whole rest of our lives.”

“I love you so fucking much.” He closes his eyes, resting his head on her forehead.

“I love you, too.”

She shifts her body a little so she can pick up the laptop from where it landed on the ground. They move so that they’re sitting upright and she shows him the photos of the house she likes so much.

Scott can see it, the rest of their lives unfolding there. Their family growing up there. All he says is “Yes,” but that’s all the answer they’ve needed tonight.

 

_**July 2022** _

It feels strange to be driving to the Virtues’ cottage for the first time in over sixteen years. He wants to go back in time and tell that scared, sad, younger Scott that it might take a while but the next time he’d drive there Tessa would be holding his hand and wearing a shiny diamond ring. Kate wanted to host a Canada Day brunch for her children and their families so Tessa had offered that they would drive up early the day before to clean the place up. He thinks the idea was partly to help her mom out and partly so that they could go in alone.

She squeezes his hand. “I hated coming back here at the start.”

They’re nearing the cottage now, he hasn’t driven these roads in so long but they’re burned in to his memory. “When did it get easier?”

“I’m not sure it’s ever easy, it just got more enjoyable. After we decided to go back to training, that’s around the time I started liking to come here again. It was easier to focus on the happy memories then.”

He lifts their joined hands and kisses hers.

“I couldn’t sleep in my old room, I don’t think I could even now. Kevin’s girls were staying there the last time I was here and I didn’t even like being in it to read them a story.”

They’re silent as he pulls up in front of the cottage. It looks so small and bright while in his head it always seemed so imposing.

“Do you want to take in the groceries first and our bags later?” Tessa asks.

He agrees. As they walk through the cottage to the kitchen he thinks that it won’t take them long at all to get it neat and tidy before Kate arrives that evening. All it needs is some dusting.

He puts away the produce they got at the local farmers’ market while Tessa tells him she’s going to go through the house and open the windows to let in some air. It’s after he’s gone out to the car and back again with more groceries that he thinks she’s been gone for longer than she should be.

The cottage is so quiet and still that the minute he steps into the hall he can hear her sobbing. Even if hadn’t been for the noise he thinks he’d have figured out where she was and make his way there. The only time he’d ever been in Tessa and Jordan’s bedroom here had been one summer when they were small and his family had come to visit hers.

Tessa’s sitting on a mattress on a small single bed with her head in her hands. There’s a floorboard lying open beside the bed and for a second he worries that she hurt herself on it but when he rushes over he sees that the floor underneath is filled with books lined up one after the other. The books all have titles about pregnancy or babies and they all fade into one in his head. They’re all yellowed, but some look much older than if Tessa had just got them back in 2005.

He sits down beside her and wraps her into his arms.

“I didn’t know if they’d still be here. I don’t know why I wondered, I was the only person who knew where they were. I couldn’t… I couldn’t look at them afterwards, and I felt bad because some of them are your mom’s, I meant to return them to her. And this one…”

He looks down at her lap and sees a worn board book copy of _Goodnight Moon_.

Tessa traces the title with her index finger. “I read it to her ev- every night,” she whispers. “Well, every night after I found it. Except the night before I went into labour because Jordan was there. And after,” she’s still sobbing, holding tight onto him, “it was so stupid, I wondered if maybe that was why she came early? I worried that she was missing it, because babies like routine and that was ours. I thought I should give it to Vera so she could give it to her parents, but Mom took me home to London when I left the hospital and… maybe I was too selfish, I- I just wanted something that was ours.”

“Tess, that’s not selfish. That was your special bond with her.”

She carefully puts the book down on the empty bedside locker, and cups his face with her hands. “I’m sorry. I was meant to be the one supporting you, I wanted to be strong for you like you always are for me.”

“You telling me this is being strong. You’re so brave, Tessa, you always have been.”

They kiss, and at first it’s soft and comforting, but then Tessa’s hands creep under his t-shirt, and she starts directing the kiss more, which usually only means one thing.

“Tess, are you sure this is what you want?”

She opens her eyes, they’re still bloodshot from the tears but they’re clear and purposeful. “I want to be close to you. I think… I need to be close to you.”

Scott raises his arms as she removes his shirt, leaving kisses all over his chest as she lifts it up. She stands up so he can help her out of her dress.

He undoes the knot at her waist and then finds that it’s not the only thing holding the flowery dress together when he sees a small button at the bottom of the valley between her breasts. It takes a little effort to open and then when the dress falls to her sides he is greeted with a new, white and red striped lingerie set. Tessa mightn’t have been planning to have sex here in this room, but she was definitely planning on him seeing this.

“Happy early Canada Day,” she whispers when he drops to the floor to lick his tongue over the thin lacy edge to her underwear and then drag them down her legs. He makes his way up her body slowly, with kisses and caresses, and he feels her relax into him. Tessa was beautiful at sixteen, but now she’s something else entirely – soft skin over strong muscles, and curves he always wants to touch.

He’s just after feeling how silky to the touch this new bra is when she says, “I used to dream about how you’d touch me back then.”

“You did?” His hands stumble unhooking her bra.

“Yes. I wanted you all the time.” She takes his hand and guides it down to where she’s so wet and warm, her hips moving against him already. She puts her mouth right beside his ear and whispers, “I pretended yours were the fingers inside me.”

If he hadn’t been hard already that would have done it. “Fuck. I never thought you might feel the same, I- I imagined being with you all the time.”

She stops moving. “Really? You pictured me pregnant?” Her eyes have lost that hooded look, they’re vulnerable now.

“Yes, I loved you so much. I couldn’t see you the way I wanted to, how your body had changed.” He kisses her softly and when he runs his other hand up and down her side it’s meant to be soothing more than anything else, but she circles her hips and hums so he picks up the pace again with his fingers. “I dreamt of what it would be like to be inside you, what way we could make it work best for both of us.”

“Scott,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering open and shut. He knows she’s close, he can feel it.

“I- I wanted to be as close to you as I could, to, to feel how your body was different with my baby inside you.” He never thought he’d tell her this.

“Is that what got you off?” Her voice is so low now, and in amongst all the want in it he still hears that little note of vulnerability.

“Jesus, Tess, I felt so guilty, but… that’s when I used to come, thinking about how we made a baby together.”

“Don’t you dare feel guilty, don’t you dare.” She comes then, so hard, big, twitching waves around his fingers, her eyes screwed shut and her arms tight around his neck, and he kisses her through it.

After, she says, “I, uh, never thought that you might want me that way. I wasn’t the same girl you fell in love with.”

“Yes, you were. Not the exact same, but I didn’t want you any less.” He nuzzles into her hair, “I’m sorry I made you think that wasn’t the case.”

“We said we didn’t need to apologise for anything back then again, remember? We were just kids.” They’d talked this over as they were starting their comeback, when he told her how sorry he was that he hadn’t been there for her. “We’re here together now.”

“I’m always going to want you.”

“You did mention that the night we got engaged.” Her eyes are playful as she looks up at him and then nimbly undoes his belt and the button to his jeans.

He’s thankful he left his shoes at the door or things would be trickier as Tessa pulls off his jeans and boxers. She dances her fingers up his legs and he nearly jumps when she takes him in his mouth.

“Tess, it’s a hardwood floor, you’ll hurt your knees.” His concern is real, but it doesn’t stop his hand reaching out for her hair, an almost autonomic response.

It’s clear she’s not planning on making him come this way, her movements lacking purpose, soft licks, none of the focus she usually brings. He remembers her staring at his dick like it was a riddle she was trying to figure out the first time she’d told him she wanted to do this. He told her she looked adorable and she said that really wasn’t what she was going for.

She’s smiling when she stands up, satisfied for sure, and he wonders if that was another thing she thought about all those nights she was missing him. She kisses him, her lips salty, and then lightly directs him over to the bed with her hands on his shoulders.

The mattress is scratchy against his skin but he soon forgets about that when Tessa sinks down on him. His hand goes to her hip because he knows she likes it, he’s wondered if it’s because the first time they’d done it like this she told him she didn’t know what to do and he’d used his hands to guide her.

“I love you.” There’s a lot of potency to the way she says it, it’s weighty, not the light, relaxed declaration she often gives when he’s moving in her the way she likes.

“I love you, too.”

This isn’t just the two of them having sex though, it’s not like them falling into bed and into each other at the end of the day, or her surprising him in the shower early in the morning. It’s not that those times aren’t meaningful or intense, it always is with them at the end when their eyes are on one another and she’s all that exists to him, it’s that this feels more than a way of showing how they love each other, how they want each other – it’s a reclamation: of this place, of that period in their lives.

Even though the afternoon sun is streaming in through the open window, catching the lighter brown in Tessa’s hair, he feels like this could be any time, like they’re here in this room in some place out of its grasp. It’s so quiet, which is unusual for them, they always talk, always tell each other what they like, what they want, how much they love each other. But here the only sound is them moving slowly, their breathing a little unsteady, and if he strains his ears maybe he can hear the water lapping at the shore.

Scott wants to move faster, wants to lose himself in Tessa, for her to lose herself in him, but she sets the rhythm here. It feels so fucking good, to be buried deep in her with her arms holding him as close they can be, chest on chest and forehead on forehead, one hand on her hip and the other in her soft, sweet, strawberry-scented hair.

They could probably both come like this if they stayed at it, he knows so many ways to bring her over the edge with him now, and maybe his favourite thing is the knowledge that he has so many more to learn. That they’ll be doing this for the rest of their lives. He’d kept telling her that the night he asked her to marry him, and one time she’d laughed, her leg draped over his shoulder, and asked, “Even when I can’t do this without breaking a hip?” and he’d assured her that it would be even more important then to get their exercise someplace other than the rink.

He smiles at the memory and Tessa smiles too, tilting her head to kiss him, first soft then firm. She starts moving her hips that little bit faster and he responds in kind.

“What were you thinking about?” She’s properly breathless now.

“You, me, the rest of our lives.”

She looks away from his eyes to the ring that she’s stroking along his shoulder, the metal cold compared to the warmth of her skin. “I love how that sounds.”

“I love how this feels.”

She kisses him again, urgent now to match the movement of her hips. She buries her head in his shoulder after she comes undone, babbling about how she’ll love him every day and always.

He comes so hard at the thought of forever.

They lie down on the bed after, Tessa on top of him because there’s nowhere near enough room for two.

“It seemed even smaller back then,” she says, rubbing her hand over his chest.

“Do you want to get up?”

“No, I think I’d like to stay here with you a little while.” Her voice is drowsy and she falls into a doze as he strokes her hair.

He wakes her up with kisses when the sun starts to fade. He’s not sure what time it is and while he knows that Kate must be aware that they’re sleeping together he has no desire for her to find them here and have a full visual.

Tessa puts the floorboard back as they pick up their clothes. They take _Goodnight Moon_ with them, for the future.

 

Scott still isn’t quite used to the fact that he’s part of the family at Virtue gatherings now. He helps Kate in the kitchen, and jokes around with Kevin and Casey, and sits with his arm around Tessa without anyone staring like they’re about to stab him. Tessa had started inviting him to things after they decided to return and he’s still not sure how much of that was them being comfortable spending time together and how much was the absence of Jim. Anytime Tessa has met up with him since they found out about Katie and got back together Scott had been away. She says he’s fine with it, but Scott won’t be convinced until he shakes his hand. It had taken until after Vancouver for Jim (and her brothers too) to even look him in the eye again.

But that is the past now and the present is Tessa’s nieces wanting to try on her ring and asking if they can be flower girls at the wedding while he makes faces at Jordan’s son.

Everyone heads out into the garden after brunch except for him, Tessa and Jordan who are clearing up.

They’re putting leftovers in the fridge while Tessa wipes down the surfaces when Jordan says, “Are you sure you don’t want any cranberry juice, Tess?”

Tessa rolls her eyes at her, “You know I’m never touching it again.”

“Just be glad I didn’t say that in front of Mom. I have great restraint.” She takes a sip of her mimosa and cackles, “You’ll need it again when you have literal honeymoon cystitis.”

“Oh my God, do you want to put him off marrying me?!” She points her dishcloth in his direction.

“Oh yeah, Scott finds the idea of all the honeymoon sex you’re going to have very off-putting.”

Both sisters turn to look at him. “Uh, I find the idea of you thinking about that off-putting? And the Tessa being sick part, that’s off-putting too.”

He’d called her on FaceTime a day or so after she got back from visiting him in Montréal that first weekend after they got together (or maybe visiting his apartment would be a more accurate description of those events) to see her wrapped in a woolly jumper with one huge glass of water and one of cranberry juice in front of her.

She explained that she had a UTI and said it was probably from all the sex like it was no big deal that she was sick and it was his fault.

“It’s not your fault, Scott. It happens! Apparently quite frequently. And I guess it could have been the bubble bath either…” Her smile was so soft and he wished he was there to take care of her. “I can think of much less fun ways to get sick.”

He still feels kind of bad about it which Tessa seems to find endearing. She walks over and kisses him.

“Ugh, you two are disgusting.”

Tessa breaks away, “You were literally just talking about our sex lives.”

Jordan shakes her glass. “I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in eighteen months and you know how strong Mom makes these. I can’t be held responsible for what I’m saying right now.”

“Okay, I’m going to talk to the babies, they make better conversationalists.” Tessa turns to him again. “We don’t have to leave right away, do we?”

“No, I think we’re starting later this year anyway. We can stay another hour for sure.” She kisses his cheek and heads out.

He watches her sit down beside her mom on a blanket outside and take Meghan, her youngest niece, from Kevin’s wife’s arms. She’s leaving kisses on her face and her smile is so wide.

“She’s going to be such a good mom.” He hadn’t realised Jordan was watching too. Her voice is so much softer than usual.

“Uh, yeah, she is.”

“I remember when Ali was born, when was it, September 2014? Tessa didn’t want to hold her, and she had to listen to all these people asking Mom about her first grandchild… It fucking sucked. She didn’t hold her for months and none of us wanted to push her on it, and then at Christmas Ali would not stop crying and Tessa just took her and walked her around while she screamed. She finally stopped and then Tess sat down and held her for like an hour while she slept. I mean, I’m told that’s how long she held her for, Mom and I went into the kitchen and bawled while we got hammered on eggnog. Casey started calling her the baby whisperer but we couldn’t let her hear that because we were all worried it would upset her.” Jordan pauses, “Do you ever… wonder?”

He hopes she hasn’t asked Tessa this. “I used to. A lot. Not anymore though, Katie is Katie because of how she grew up, and… Tessa and I are together now.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I…” She turns from the window to face him. “I’m so happy you two made it work. We all are. Even Kevin, and he wanted to murder you back then.”

“Kevin?” He always seemed so gentle.

“Oh yeah, we had to literally restrain him from rushing out the door and into the car. Mom told us and he jumped up shouting about how he was going to kill you. It’s kind of funny now but…”

“Yeah. I understand.”

She looks out at Kate and Tessa laughing and then back to him. “I don’t think Mom would have forgiven herself if you hadn’t got back together.” She lowers her eyes, “We used to think that it would be better if Tessa had space, that she’d meet someone new and move on. It wasn’t even that she was unhappy all those years, she wasn’t, it was more that she was so much happier when you two got close again. I thought she was so silly when she was younger, talking about how much the two of you loved each other and how she could never feel that way about anyone else, and then after you two moved to Montréal it seemed like maybe she’d been right all along.”

“You must have been waiting a while then.”

Jordan laughs, “I tried telling her to do something about it but she would not listen. I’m very grateful you got down to business quickly with the engagement, and then having the wedding next June. I can plan my next pregnancy around being able to drink at Tessa’s bachelorette and looking good in my maid of honour’s dress.”

“I’m glad to be of service.”

She hugs him, and then pushes him away. “Go out and be disgustingly cute with my sister, I’ll finish up here.”

Scott does as he’s told.

Tessa beams when he sits down beside her and Meghan claps her hands. He leans over to say hi properly and she grabs a fistful of his hair. He never quite remembers just how painful this is until it happens again.

“Nice touch, Meghan, nice touch.” Tessa strokes her little hand until she releases him. “That hair really is a hit with the Virtue girls, huh?”

The baby reaches out her arms to him, “You want to hang out with me for a little while?” He takes her from Tessa and she’s so much more solid now than even a few weeks ago. “You’re getting big and strong.” He turns her around so that she’s facing Tessa and she starts squirming in his arms so he lets her stand up on the picnic blanket, his hands tightly holding onto hers.

“You’re such a wriggler, Meggy-munchkin,” Tessa coos, throwing her hair over her back before reaching closer and tickling Meghan’s tummy. “You are, aren’t you?”

Meghan giggles and starts bouncing up and down. Tessa looks up at him and he must have some lovestruck idiot expression on his face because her cheeks go pink.

“You two are going to be so good at this,” Amy smiles from where she’s standing watching Kevin play with their older girls.

He wishes people didn’t feel the need to talk like them being parents is some inevitability. Of course he wants a family with Tess, he wants that more than anything, but on their own terms and in their own time.

“We’ll do our best,” Tessa says, and kisses him and then Meghan.

They stay out there playing with her until it’s time for them to leave for Ilderton. Tessa has a hard time getting her nieces to let her leave so he goes to get their bags while she tells the girls her plans for a full day to spend with them soon.

Kate’s waiting for him in the hall when he comes out of the bedroom he and Tessa had shared the night before.

She smiles at him, a little nervous. “I hope you could have a good time here, Scott, I know… I know coming back can’t have been easy.”

“I had a great time, I’m looking forward to coming back again.” He embraces her and she sniffles a little into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry…”

“I know. It’s okay.”

It might not be entirely okay, but he doesn’t need her to say it again. She’d apologised to him late one night last summer when he’d been sitting up with her after her first round of chemo. Tessa was sleeping for once and Kate had asked him to put down the book he was reading to her so they could talk. He had needed to hear her say sorry, though he hadn’t known that until after it happened. But once was all that was required, she’s done more than enough to show him over these past few years that she means it.

Kate dries her eyes after he lets go, “I’ll see you at the barbecue later.”

“Are you still meeting Katie, Laura, and Rosemary in Ilderton?”

“Yes, I’m going to show them the way to your parents’.”

“Thanks, we’ll see you then.” He hugs her again before heading out.

Tessa’s waiting for him beside the car when he gets outside. “Were you talking to Mom?”

He nods, kissing her on the cheek before opening the door for her, “It was good.”

Scott keeps one hand on hers for the whole drive.

When they arrive at his parents’ house there aren’t many cars there already so they can park at the house and not in the adjoining field.

He asks Tessa if she’s feeling okay and she squeezes his hand and smiles.

Hannah pulls up right after they do and she’s barely out of the car before she’s requesting to see the ring in person.

“Oh, Tessa!! It’s so beautiful! So you! And I still can’t believe Scott booked flux and form for a day so you could design it together!” She lowers her voice, “He did not get that from his brother.”

Scott turns to Jack who followed his mom out of the car. “Not too interested in this ring talk, eh?”

Jack shakes his head.

“Oh my goodness, Jack, you’re getting so tall!” His face goes bright red. He really isn’t all that big, he’s scrawny like Scott was at that age. “I remember holding you when you were just a baby your first Canada Day.”

Tessa leans into him as she says that and Scott kisses her temple. That was the worst one he thinks.

Jack is clearly not impressed with having to watch this canoodling. His mother meanwhile looks charmed. “Oh, I’m just so happy every time I see you two together! Now, while you’re here, would you mind helping me carry the food in?”

“I’ll help!” Jack offers.

“Well, that is a surprise. You take the small box and Uncle Scott can take the big one. Tessa, can you bring in the pavlova?”

Jack takes a look at the big box like he’s sizing it up before apparently deciding it’s a step too far. His face almost matches the shade of Tessa’s dress as he walks in beside her and answers her questions about how he’s getting on at hockey.

His mom is all go when they enter the kitchen, barely saying hi to them before she puts Tessa to work making salads and sends him out to start grilling. She isn’t exactly sympathetic when she sees his face fall at being separated from Tessa and losing his chance to introduce her as his fiancée to everyone they meet.

“Scott, we had years of your pining. You’re engaged now, no more nonsense. People are going to be arriving soon!” She drops her voice to a whisper, “Katie is coming! We need to make sure she has a good time!”

He puts his arms around her and she lets him hug her for a few seconds before pushing him out the door, “The burgers, Scott! Get going with the burgers!”

It’s a beautiful day, maybe even a little too hot, especially beside the barbecue. Charlie has managed to set up a sound system in the garage and music echoes through the air. He’s kept distracted by the stream of relatives coming up to congratulate him on the engagement and ask about how he’s liking his new job. He had invited Sabine and Luc to come along but Sabine was going with her host family to their cottage and Luc was heading back to Montréal to spend the day with their old training mates. It’s probably a good thing Sabine isn’t coming considering that Katie will be here, he thinks she’d figure the whole thing out in no time at all.

He’s beginning to really question just how many people his mom is expecting to feed, and whether she wants him to die a fiery death because that has to be where this experience is heading, when he feels something ice cold on the back of his neck. He jumps and then turns around to find a laughing Tessa holding out a beer for him.

“I love you.”

“Me or the beer?”

He pauses before drinking, “I don’t think you want to know.”

Tessa comes closer, circling her arms around his neck. “Are you sure about that?”

“You shouldn’t stand too close to this thing; your dress will start to smell all smoky.”

She shrugs, “It’ll wash out.”

He puts the beer down and runs his hands down her sides. “Maybe I do love you more.”

“Good,” she tells him, before she puts her lips on his.

He doesn’t mean to get so carried away, he really doesn’t, but Tessa tastes like summer, and he’s finally kissing her again on Canada Day in his parents’ backyard, so screw it if he ends up angling her body so the rest of the people present can’t see that his hands are on her perfect ass and hers are dipping under the bottom of his shirt.

They’re rudely interrupted when he feels a stream of water on his back and turns to find Danny holding a water gun.

“Listen, we’re all delighted that the two of you finally got your shit together, but you did that months ago. There is no need for all this PDA. Fix your goddamn shirt, Scott.”

“Hey, we just got engaged. That entitles us to at least another few months of being all over each other.”

Tessa moulds into his side. “It’s not really PDA anyway, we’re all family here.”

Well, he has to kiss her again when she says that.

Danny groans and then says, “What would make you more likely to stop – the news that your kid is walking over here or the fact that Kate is coming over with her and her family?”

He looks behind his brother to see that he is indeed telling the truth. He and Tessa both wave, and then he says, “The Kate part, definitely still the Kate part.”

“Duly noted.” Danny turns to Katie and puts out his arms, “How’s my favourite British-accented Canadian?”

Katie smiles, a little awkwardly, Scott thinks. “Good! How are you? It’s a big party you have here!” She turns towards him and Tessa, “I don’t think I realised quite how many Moirs there are.”

Oh no, is this too overwhelming for her? They’d talked about it when he rang her and Laura the day after he’d invited them but maybe he hadn’t prepared them well enough.

Katie shakes her head a little, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t say it first. Congratulations!!! I’m so happy for you!!” She throws her arms around him and Tessa. She’d been so excited when they called her with the news. “I need to see the ring properly now!”

Laura and Rosemary crowd around too, giving him and Tessa hugs and kisses, before they all start oohing and ahhing at the ring.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous. It has some stones from your nana’s ring and then some new ones, is that right, Tessa? They all fit together so beautifully in that setting,” Laura admires.

Rosemary grabs a handkerchief from her purse. “I think this is all too much for me. Now, what is your family’s opinion on hard liquor? I do find a gin and tonic so refreshing in the summer heat.”

“You find it refreshing most days of the year,” Katie says.

Danny leans forward from where he’s been chatting to Kate and places a hand on Rosemary’s shoulder, “Mrs…”

“Oh, call me Rosemary, dear. I don’t want to feel like an old lady.”

“Well, Rosemary, I think you’re going to fit right in. Let me get you set up with a drink.” Danny offers her his arm and off they go.

Laura and Kate follow after them and he sends Katie and Tessa in to get something to eat telling them that he’ll join them soon.

A few minutes after they’ve gone inside he hears, then sees, Sheri and Cara marching towards him. Shit, he really should have made more of an effort to tell them about Katie, but Sheri had been so stressed with work the past year and he couldn’t tell Cara without telling her. Any time he’d tried to tell either of them the moment hadn’t seemed right.

Cara opens her mouth and then closes it, taking a step back.

Sheri takes a deep breath, “We’re not mad. We’re confused, and we’re worried we might be crazy, but we’re not mad.” She’s talking really fucking fast. “So, Vernon starts flirting with this glamorous blonde lady whom we’ve never met before who introduces herself to him as Kate’s cousin, which okay, a bit weird seeing as we thought we had Tessa’s family tree down, but then we see her daughter who is the spitting image of Tess at that age so we think ‘yeah, that checks out’. The girl seemed a little nervous, maybe because we can be a bit much when we’re all together, I don’t know, and your mom went over to her and started chatting. Cara and I were kind of looking at each other because they seemed to know each other better than we thought your mom would know some random cousin of Tessa’s who used to live in England, and then Tessa came over and put her arm around her and she was in the middle, Alma and Tess on either side and…” She takes another breath and slows down, “It wasn’t just Tessa who she looked like, Scott. She has your mom’s smile, and your eyes, the same eyes as half the people here. And maybe we’re going crazy, or it’s something you can’t tell us but… is that girl your daughter?”

“You’re not crazy,” he says simply.

Sheri’s face breaks, “Oh, Scotty,” and she pulls him into a tight hug.

Cara pats his arm after Sheri releases him. She opens her mouth and closes it again.

“That’s Tessa and Katie, is it Katie?” He nods and Sheri blinks a few times. “That’s them coming now so we’ll leave you to it.”

Cara follows her and he swears he hears her mutter, “Mono, fucking mono.”

He looks over at Tessa and Katie coming towards him and maybe it was what Jordan said earlier, but for a split second he wonders what it would have been like to have her here for every Canada Day barbecue, to have got to kiss Tessa at all of them while Katie ran around playing with her cousins. But that lasts for half a breath before all he can feel is happiness that she’s finally here, that maybe this was where they were all meant to end up no matter what path they took.

Danny appears at his side and claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll take over here, Scott. You go spend time with your girls.”

He thanks him and heads over to Katie and Tessa.

“Oh good, you can carry your meal,” Tessa says, handing him one of the three plates she’s balancing.

“And your drink.” He fishes the beer bottle out from between the two cups Katie is carrying.

“I’m so well taken care of.” He leads them over to the Muskoka chairs in the shadiest part of the backyard.

“So, how was London?” he asks when they all get settled, Tessa and Katie sitting across from him on the side of the same chair.

They have to wait for a response until after Katie finishes chewing and then wipes her mouth with a napkin Tessa gives her. “It was great! It was so good spending time with all my friends again, and Alex is so cute, he’s not really a baby anymore, he’s getting into everything, and Emma was nice.”

He and Tessa glance at each other for a moment, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Katie refer to her dad’s new wife by her name.

“And I came out to Dad,” she has this big smile on her face so he knows it went well, “and both my fathers are clearly super enthusiastic about having a gay daughter because he went all in. Like, went and bought a pride flag the next day. I was kind of glad they have Pride in July in London because he would have wanted to go and it might have been a bit much honestly.”

“I’m so happy it went well,” Tessa smiles.

“And Jenny is coming back from Sweden in two days so the rest of the summer is going to be great, too.”

“We’re going to have to meet Jenny, ask her about her intentions and all that,” Scott jokes.

Katie laughs, “You’ve actually met her already, before you met me, or I met her. Just quickly at meet and greets, but you have met her.”

“We can look forward to meeting her properly then, as your girlfriend.”

Katie smiles at Tessa, and then adjusts her head so she can see them both. “Enough about me! I want to hear about wedding plans!”

“It’s still pretty early in the planning process, but it’s next June for sure.” They didn’t see any point in having a long-drawn out engagement.

“It will be small, just close family and friends.” Tessa looks at Katie almost shyly, “We’d love for you and your family to be there.”

Katie reaches out for Tessa’s hand. “Of course we’ll be there.”

The music changes to a Rolling Stones song and almost simultaneously he and Katie say, “I love this song.” It’s always made him think of Tessa.

“It was on the playlist I used to play for you,” Tessa says softly.

“Really?!” Katie seems shocked. “Wow… It’s… it’s me and my mum’s song. The Rolling Stones are her favourite band, and Keith Richards started writing it as a lullaby so she sang it for me when I was in the hospital, and then all the time growing up. I guess it was important to her because… well, they’d tried to have a biological child, and that didn’t work out, and then they had an adoption fall through before me so… she’d been waiting a long time to have a baby.”

“She was waiting for you.” Tessa hugs Katie close to her.

“Maybe you two could skate to it?” Katie sounds hesitant.

“Would you like that?” he asks. It would work for them, he knows it would, is already considering how the curve lift from Prince might fit at the start of the last chorus.

She nods, her head resting on Tessa’s shoulder. “Yeah, I think… It could be, um, special? It would be kind of like your story, and then me and my mum’s, and then all of us together.”

“I think that sounds beautiful,” Tessa says, her eyes filling with tears.

Scott wraps his arms around them, so grateful that they’re all here together. A little segment of a much wider family, a family with different types of ties, but all connected by love.

 

Over the years the song will follow them around. Katie will watch them skate to it the next summer, with her mum on one side and Jenny on her other, each holding one of her hands.

A month after that she’ll see them dance to it at their wedding, and she’ll think that maybe it’s actually more meaningful then, when there are no spotlights or big crowds. They’re in the middle of the dancefloor with family and friends all around but they look like they could be anywhere, like it’s just the two of them somewhere unreachable to the rest of the world.

It’s the song that she will sing to Tessa and Scott’s babies as they come one after one – Daniel, Laura, and Grace. And then to her own.

Katie’s family will get a lot bigger, and maybe some would say more complicated, but she always thinks it’s quite simple.

A family is made up of love, and there can never be too much love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it!!! I can't quite believe this fic is finished, and I don't really want to leave this universe behind so feel free to send me any prompts for any time point or event you'd like and I will see what I can do! There are already some other moments from this universe (and its alternate) on my tumblr (also iwantthemtostay) if you'd like to read those :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [every right thing (will find its right place)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17390447) by [only_because3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_because3/pseuds/only_because3)




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